In This Article:
Participants
Thomas Ward Ward; Senior VP of Investor Relations; Simon Property Group Inc
David Simon; Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer; Simon Property Group Inc
Brian McDade; Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President; Simon Property Group Inc
Jeffrey Spector; Analyst; Bank of America
Steve Sakwa; Analyst; Evercore ISI Institutional Equities
Michael Goldsmith; Analyst; UBS Investment Bank
Nicholas Joseph; Analyst; Citigroup Inc
Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum; Analyst; Compass Point Research & Trading
Greg McGinnis; Analyst; Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets
Alexander Goldfarb; Analyst; Piper Sandler & Co
Juan Sanabria; Analyst; BMO Capital Markets Equity Research
Vince Tibone; Analyst; Green Street Advisors
Michael Mueller; Analyst; JPMorgan
Caitlin Burrows; Analyst; Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Haendel St. Juste; Analyst; Mizuho Securities USA
Linda Yu Tsai; Analyst; Jefferies
Ronald Kamdem; Analyst; Morgan Stanley
Presentation
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to the Simon Property Group fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tom Ward, thank you. You may begin.
Thomas Ward Ward
Thank you, Matt, and thank you all for joining us this evening. Presenting on today's call are David Simon, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President; Brian McDade, Chief Financial Officer; and Adam Reuille, Chief Accounting Officer.
A quick reminder that statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and actual results may differ materially due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors. We refer you to today's press release and our SEC filings for a detailed discussion of the risk factors relating to those forward-looking statements.
Please note that this call includes information that may be accurate only as of today's date. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included within the press release and the supplemental information in today's Form 8-K filing. Both the press release and the supplemental information are available on our IR website at investors.simon.com. Our conference call this evening will be limited to 1 hour. (Operator Instructions)
I am pleased to introduce David Simon.
David Simon
Simon. Good evening. I'm pleased with our financial and operational results in the fourth quarter, concluding an exceptional year for our company. We reported record total funds from operation of $4.9 billion or $12.99 per share. We generated $4.6 billion in real estate FFO or $12.24 per share, which was growth of 3.9% year-over-year. We returned a record of more than $3 billion to shareholders in cash dividends. And now we have paid approximately $45 billion to shareholders in dividends over our history as a public company.
We saw record leasing and retail sales volume and occupancy gains for the year. We completed last week, the acquisition of the mall, two well-known luxury outlet centers in Italy from Kering. We look forward to adding these high-quality luxury assets into our global portfolio while continuing to build upon their success. We opened a new fully leased Premium Outlet in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we completed 16 significant redevelopment projects during the year.
Development, redevelopment opportunities are growing within our portfolio. We delivered our A-rated balance sheet, providing additional capacity and flexibility to fund future growth.
Now I'm going to turn it over to Brian, who we will cover our fourth quarter results in more detail and provide our outlook for 2025.
Brian McDade
Real estate FFO was $3.35 per share in the first in the fourth quarter compared to $3.23 in the prior year, 3.7% growth. Domestic and international operations had a very good quarter and contributed $0.18 of growth. During the quarter, we sold assets that resulted in a tax benefit which partially offset the prior tax expense from our ABG sale and essentially offset a write-off of predevelopment costs associated with a joint venture development project in California.
Leasing momentum continued across the portfolio. We signed more than 1,500 leases for 6.1 million square feet in the quarter. For the year, we signed a record 5,500 leases for more than 21 million square feet. Approximately 25% of our leasing activity for the year were new deals. Malls and outlet occupancy at the end of the fourth quarter was 96.5%, an increase of 70 basis points compared to the prior year. Our year-end occupancy is the highest level over the last 8 years.
The Mills occupancy was 98.8%, an increase of 1% and is at a record level. Average base minimum rent for the malls and outlets increased 2.5% year-over-year and the Mills increased 4.3%. Retailer sales per square foot was $739 for the year. Strong revenue growth across our businesses, combined with expense discipline, resulted in a 100-basis point increase year-over-year in our industry-leading operating margin. Our occupancy cost at the end of the year was 13%.
Domestic NOI increased 4.4% year-over-year for the quarter and 4.7% for the year. Portfolio NOI, which includes our international properties at a constant currency, grew 4.5% for the quarter and 4.6% for the year. Fourth quarter funds from operations were $1.39 billion or $3.68 per share compared to $1.38 billion or $3.69 per share last year.
Fourth quarter results include $0.20 per share of noncash after-tax gain from the combination of JCPenney and SPARC Group. The mark-to-market fair value of Klepierre's exchangeable bonds increased year-over-year, which offset a lower contribution from OPI operations. As a reminder, the prior year results include $0.33 per share in gain from the sale of part of our interest in ABG last year.
Turning to new development and redevelopment. This year, we will open our first Premium Outlets in Jakarta, Indonesia in March and expect to begin construction on 4 to 5 mixed-use projects throughout the year. We expect to fund these redevelopments and mixed-use projects with our internally generated cash flow of over $1.5 billion after our dividend payments.
Other platform investments, JCPenney and SPARC Group combined to form a portfolio of iconic retailer banners called Catalyst Brands. Catalyst brings together SPARC's brands, Arrow Postal, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Lucky and Nautica with JCPenney in its exclusive private brands. Catalysts sold Reebok in early January and is currently evaluating strategic options for Forever 21. We view the Catalyst transaction as a positive development that will create significant synergies with a solid balance sheet that will enable the company to drive EBITDA growth.
Catalyst shareholders include Simon, Brookfield, Authentic Brands Group and Sheen.
Turning to the balance sheet. During 2024, we completed $11 billion in financing activities, including issuing $1 billion in senior notes for the 10-year term and a 4.75% interest rate. We recasted our $3.5 billion revolving credit facility, with maturity extended to January of 2030 and no change in pricing or terms, and completed over $6 billion of secured loan refinancings and extensions.
Lastly, we delevered our balance sheet by approximately $1.5 billion in the year and ended the year at 5.2 times net debt to EBITDA. Our A-rated balance sheet provides a distinct advantage with more than $10 billion of liquidity at year-end.
Additionally, today, relative to our dividend, we announced a dividend of $2.10 per share for the first quarter, a year-over-year increase of 7.7%. The dividend is payable on March 31.
Now moving on to our 2025 guidance. Our real estate -- our real estate FFO guidance range is $12.40 to $12.65 per share. Our guidance reflects the following assumptions: Domestic property NOI growth of at least 3%, increased net interest expense compared to 2024 of between $0.25 to $0.30 per share, reflecting current market interest rates and projected cash balances compared to 2024. Lastly, our diluted share count of approximately 377 million shares and units outstanding.
Due to the recent Catalyst Brands transaction, we will not include Catalyst guidance at this time. We expect there will be significant savings and synergies from the combination that will be coupled with potential restructuring costs. We expect Catalyst will generate positive EBITDA in fiscal 2025 and roughly breakeven FFO as they work through the combination.
With that, thank you, and David and I are now available for your questions.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
Jeff Specter, Bank of America.
Jeffrey Spector
Great. I know you'll get through some of the numbers through some of the other questions. I wanted to focus on some of the initiatives you have to bring people to the mall. I know you have the Tomorrow Stars, the meet you at the mall, when your traffic was up at malls, Premium Outlets, can you talk a little bit more about some of the programs initiatives that you're doing to, again, bring the shopper to the mall? And how did those programs go for the holiday season? Thank you.
David Simon
Well, listen, I think we're leaders in this area. Our national advertising campaign is all about talking about how it's fun to go to the mall and hang out just like in the '80s and '90s, we had a very good reception to it. We rebranded Simon Premium Outlets to Shop Simon. We're in the midst of creating our loyalty program. So -- and then obviously, we've got events -- thousands of events that drive traffic through the year, whether it's breast cancer awareness programs, Valentines Day, basically, every major event that occurs within the US, we try to drive an event around it, Easter down the road.
So I couldn't be prouder of our marketing efforts. They're very digital. They're very fun. They use new media in a lot of ways. And I just expect more and more -- and more importantly, we're seeing return on investment. And we've got the data to prove that. And not that our peer group is wide and deep, but to the extent that it is, there's nobody doing more when it comes to data, digital comments -- commerce with Charles Simon, marketing events. You put it all together, we're leaps and bounds compared to what else is out there. Thank you.
Operator
Steve Sakwa, Evercore ISI.
Steve Sakwa
Yeah, thanks. Good evening, David, you guys obviously had a great year with 21 million square feet of leasing, occupancy up, given where you're sitting on the occupancy side, I'm just curious how the discussions that your leasing team are having with the retailers is kind of shifting. And maybe talk about the pricing power and how that's kind of returned to the mall for the As. And to tie that into NOI growth, you've talked about greater than 3%, but you certainly beaten 4% for the last like 3 years in a row. So what are we missing on the 3% front? And maybe just comment on pricing power. Thank you.
David Simon
Well, let me just talk about 3%. So look, we -- as we did last year, we budget flat sales. Why? I don't really know, but that's what we do. And when you do that, we've come up with a conservative number. To the extent that we have sales growth like we did this year, again, maybe not overall, but the retailers that matter, we generate overage rent, which obviously pops our NOI growth.
So I hope we're being conservative. Obviously, there's pretty good animal spirits in the US and its economy. We expect to participate in that. And again, I don't like the word pricing power. I just think we're able to -- we have deep relationships with our retailers. And we're able to generate a lot of new business. We see new retailers approach us all the time and new uses all the time, which essentially allows us to -- and one of the big things to grow, we're never stuck with the tenant mix that we have.
So what -- and I think Brian knows the numbers specifically, but I think 25% of our leases this year renew. So what's driving a lot of what we do is we're able to take the retailers that aren't doing the sales and replace them with ones that will, and that -- because they'll do better volume, that drives rent growth. And then I don't call that pricing power. I just think that's improving our mix and doing what we need to do to drive our business forward.
And as I said, I think, last call is we still think we have an opportunity because, frankly, we've been organizationally very focused on the -- for no better word, the As. We do think there's real effort, focus, growth for us in the Bs where we're investing our dollars. So that's a big program for us in '25 and '26.
And just to cap off your question, we still feel -- and again, it's hard to predict because there's always downtime, bankruptcies, et cetera. But we still feel like we have upside in our occupancy. We're still not at our high that was 97.1%, if I remember right, in 2014, Tom's shaking his head, yes. So we still -- some message to my leasing team, if they're listening. I don't mind if they're not, if they're making a lease, but assuming they're listening, let's get up to our record high in 2014, and then we'll take a deep breath, but we won't till then.
Operator
Michael Goldsmith, UBS.
Michael Goldsmith
Good evening. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Maybe just following off the last one, right, the NOI expectation dropped from 4% last year and for the last several years, down to 3%. So bridging the gap between those expectations, it sounds like some of that is retail sales. But it sounds like occupancy, there's still upside, but is there the same magnitude of upside? And then also, are you taking into account any sort of tenant bankruptcies or credit reserve in that as well, which is driving that by 100 basis points? Thanks.
Brian McDade
Hey Michael, it's Brian. So I think, first, we've historically put out at least 3% at the beginning of every year, including last year and then have subsequently beat that, which we've repeated here. I think you just heard David talk about the overage component we budgeted, assumed sales were flat. So there's a negative componentry mathematically to overage in the subsequent year.
You heard us just talk about mix. And so as we swap out tenants for new tenants, there is downtime, specifically associated with our full-price business as we build out those stores. Last thing I would mention, you just mentioned bad debt. Our numbers in '25 take it into consideration our historical approach to bad debt. We did slightly better than that in 2024, but we've taken an appropriate expectation into '25 relative to our standard approach.
So those are the 3 major drivers that would get you kind of back to a -- from this year's number down to a 3% number for -- again, as a baseline starting in '25.
Michael Goldsmith
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Operator
Craig Milman, Citi.
Nicholas Joseph
Thanks, It's Nick Joseph here with Craig. David, I just want to touch on the potential impact for tariffs. Obviously, the news keeps changing. But just broadly, what are you hearing from your retailers? How is it impacting their business and kind of the uncertainty there and the potential impact of the de minimis exemption going away?
David Simon
Yeah, but I don't, it's interesting. Just our first -- I don't know where every retailer sources their good. But if you take Catalyst as an example, they only source 20% of their goods with all the brands of about 20 -- in China, okay? So -- and when we talk to Catalyst, their view of it is with respect to China that they will pass some of it on to the consumer, but also hope that the supplier tightens up the cost of goods sold. So many, many retailers have moved a lot of production out of China over the last several years.
And the good news is where we had the most exposure was shoes, which Reebok would have been more exposed. But as you know, we disposed of the Reebok operating business in January. So no one is really -- honestly, it hasn't affected buyout day-to-day decision-making. And it's relatively reduced amount for the retail.
What's really going to be helpful to the American retailers and the non-Chinese retailers is to get rid of the de minimis rule, which basically exempts tariffs if you send a package over $800 to a customer. That's not a level playing field. That causes retailers to pay more, that ship in bulk and it's given real benefits to someone like Tau where they shipped purposely under the $800. Congress is taking up.
I know the President is taking it up, and that will absolutely be -- if enacted, will give a real shot in the arm to retailers that don't purposely try to send their goods to get under the $800 limitation. Not only to say it's also more green, it saves packaging costs, et cetera. It's good for our country. And I hope Congress and/or the President enact it. That, to me, is more material than any tariffs that are being talked about.
Nicholas Joseph
It's very helpful.
Operator
Floris Van Dijkum, Compass Point.
Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum
Hey, thanks for taking my question. Good to hear your voice, David. A couple of questions, but I guess I'm going to focus on the -- your latest acquisition in Italy. I note that Kering just snuck into your top 10 list this past quarter prior to the acquisition. I'm curious if you can talk about that acquisition, the returns that you expect to achieve, how you might be able to manage those assets going forward? .
And also, what would Kering's percentage have been, had they been included? I guess -- I know that your top 10 is domestic only, but how much of an impact would that have on the -- if you were to include Kering's exposure in Europe as well?
David Simon
Well, let's -- on that particular point, you'll see that in our next supplement. So -- it will go up, but you'll see that in our next supplement. Look, I would say we're under a confidentiality agreement on the details other than the price, I will tell you we've been very, as you know, very selective on acquisitions. And we're only buying top stuff at the right price. This follows 100% of that strategy.
So it's top stuff at the right price, Kering will remain a long-term tenant in that. They have a very -- they've had historically a very competent group that ran it for them, obviously, because they're not -- that's not their main business, as you know. We've taken over that team, we'll help them with strategic guidance and we think there's upside in the business.
We think it's NAV accretive for us. We also think it's earnings accretive for us. So it again is something we wanted to do years and years ago, but they weren't ready to do it. We're extremely excited about doing it. The location, Itay is in a renaissance. So it's got one of the positive growths in the EU, and this is -- these are the kind of deals we want to do and buy it at the right price. It's accretive to NAV, accretive to earnings, but it's also high quality with the right retailers -- and we couldn't have done a -- we couldn't have picked a better asset in terms of this.
Floris Gerbrand van Dijkum
Thanks, David.
Operator
Greg McGinnis, Scotiabank.
Greg McGinnis
Hey, good evening, David. Following up on your comment regarding the focus on B mall investments in 2025, '26. Are you able to talk about the types of investments that you make in those malls, whether it differs from how you would approach investing in an A mall? And then any detail on the magnitude of those investments and expected return? Thanks.
David Simon
I'll just be very generic. Brian can lay it out for you later. But to me it's a whole combination of things. These are important assets in the communities. We've been focused on the bigger assets historically. So it's a combination of adding boxes, updating the look, feel of the place, restaurants, tenants, everyone changes a little bit differently.
But I'll just take Smith Haven as an example, we're going to -- I've got to be careful because I don't know if I can announce it even though the lease is signed. So they got an announcement coming, this is in basically Eastern Long Island where we're going to update, renovate the property, add a great retailer and a huge box. We just added Primark, a hospital just opened up there, one of their health facilities.
And that will probably be about a 12% return and over the next couple of years. And it will be a renovated, rejuvenated asset that because of all the progress we've made in the bigger ones, we're able to kind of reenergize our focus on an asset like that. But the -- a list of those is long.
So Brian can go through it, but that's just one that kind of jumps to top of mind. And to my team, I'm supposed to see a press release on that, but I haven't seen it. So please move that along. Thank you.
Operator
Alexander Goldfarb, Piper Sandler.
Alexander Goldfarb
Hey, good evening, David. Good to hear you and, I'm sure the people at Smithtown will appreciate the dollar spend. A question on your guidance for '25. Obviously, very good versus expectations despite the headwinds on the interest expense that Brian laid out.
So my question is, is this back to sort of the old Simon days, pre-pandemic, where you guys just had strong internal growth that was accelerating? Or is this more about removing OPI drag from the future? I'm just trying to understand if this is just all the side but not yet leases taking effect or if truly the underlying portfolio is accelerating, and we're going back to where you guys used to be pre-pandemic when the core portfolio would just -- was really just humming along.
David Simon
Well, the $12.40 to $12.65 excludes Catalyst. The other investments in OPI are small. So they're and again, they're either FFO is probably the wrong way to look at those investments. But they run through FFO anyway because they're one is an asset management company and one is an e-commerce marketplace and an e-commerce retailer. And so FFO is the least important metric on those, but they run through our numbers.
So Catalyst is outside of that number, and I don't like the word old, Alex, but yes -- no, we're growing the portfolio, what we said at least 3%. I think we've said at least 3% in the last 2 years, maybe three, I don't remember, 3 years, Brian say. So hopefully, we can beat that.
And that's basically all the stuff that leads to that, which is leasing, focused operational margins, events, Simon Brand Ventures, replacing boxes, restaurants, all of the basics and we still see that. I think we've got a pretty good run, forget the big juice that we got back from getting back the business after we were unreasonably shut down by various state governments. But we've been clipping along 4 plus percent, even though we guided to 3%, and let's see how this year transpires, but we've got a lot going for us.
And the biggest of which is a great team, leasing is focused. We feel that there's upside in the portfolio across the board. But primarily in our historical bread and butter properties. We're going to do smart deals, we're prudent with a hell of a balance sheet. And I think -- and we're leased, leased, leased, I think it's not overly complicated.
And then Catalyst will -- it's honestly a big six months as they go through it, and we'll have a better sense of kind of -- it will be positive EBITDA for sure, we'll have better idea of FFO as the year progresses. But just to be clear, it's not in our number as of what we've guided to in the $12.40 to $12.65.
Alexander Goldfarb
Okay, Good to see the magic.
David Simon
Thank you.
Operator
Juan Sanabria, BMO Capital Markets.
Juan Sanabria
Hi, great to hear your voice, David, as well. Just a question on the leasing. It looks like about 5% is still month-to-month. I think that's still kind of above where you were pre-COVID in 2019. So just curious on how you think that will evolve over time. And it's just like a second or part B of a question, how has the SNO pipeline changed, if at all, over time? And could you just give us where it is as of year-end, please?
Brian McDade
Hey Juan, it's Brian. SNO at the year-end, it was about 250 basis points as we brought occupancy on in the fourth quarter, and you saw that in the numbers. Month-to-month, we'll as we move leases through our leasing process, ultimately, not everything gets signed at the same time. So we put that into that category. Nothing there. We're in the process of renewals in year-end leasing. And so ultimately, we would expect that number to come down throughout the year.
David Simon
I just would say we're slightly but I like to be understand why it takes so long. But put that aside, we do get our leases signed up, and we are slightly ahead of where we were last year on our renewals and side, I should say. But we've got commitments on a lot of.
Juan Sanabria
Sure.
Operator
Vince Tibone, Green Street.
Vince Tibone
Hi, good evening. I have a few questions related to the mixed-use projects you mentioned earlier. So what is the expected pro rata spend on the 4 to 5 mixed-use projects to break ground in '25? And also, like what's the common structure? Are you doing this primarily on your own balance sheet or using joint venture partners for the nonretail components? And also, is it mostly residential? Or like what are some of the other nonretail property types in there? Sorry for the multiple questions. But...
David Simon
Yeah, I'm sorry I interrupted you. So it will be around $400 million to $500 million. And again, we are -- when I look at the ones that we're expecting to start this year, they're all JVs. And they will run from residential to a couple of hotels to office. And just to give you a sense what's in that category, we expect hotel in Roosevelt Field, a big residential project in Brea, office at Clearfork, and we're expanding a hotel at The Domain in Austin, Texas. Those are all pretty much planned for.
I would expect, Vince, to add to that this year. As you know, we've got Northgate under construction. We are going to somewhat accelerate, if we can, anything we're planning in California. I am very nervous about construction costs there given the horrific events in Southern Cal.
So we're looking at a couple of projects there that we might push before what's going on there. But I would expect us to add more to the pipeline, but those are kind of the ones that were pretty much until you got a shovel on the ground, it ain't over, but those are pretty much baked in the cake. And in this case, they all happen to be JVs, but that could change.
Vince Tibone
No, that, that's really helpful. I get one more clarification. When you say joint ventures, like, is Simon typically like a 10% or 20%, partner in the non-retail portion, or are you an 80% owner of the non-retail? Just trying to get a sense of appetite for non-retail.
David Simon
Yeah. No, no, no, Vince, they're usually 50-50.
Vince Tibone
Great. Thank you.
David Simon
Okay, no problem.
Vince Tibone
Thank you.
Operator
Mike Mueller, JPMorgan.
Michael Mueller
Yeah, hi,I know you can't talk about the Kering pricing, but what's your sense as to how pricing on a comparable quality US asset would compare today? Do you think it'd be similar or stronger or weaker?
David Simon
So. I missed the question. Can you say it one more -- I didn't understand it. Can you rephrase it?
Caitlin Burrows
So, yeah, I was saying on the Italy purchase, we know you can't talk about the cap rate and the economics. But just curious, as a hypothetical, if you have something comparable quality in the US, how would you imagine the pricing would compare to what you were in for in Italy. Do you think it would be stronger, higher cap rate, lower cap rate, something similar? Just curious on thoughts there.
David Simon
It's a good question, and I'm trying to think if I can answer it. I'll try to be artful. I would say let me do a macro make a macro statement about Italy. Usually, macro or the even though properties are powerful and comparable, they'll tend to have higher cap rates than they would to the US. And obviously, that calculus is important as to how we think about this. How's that?
Michael Mueller
That was good. I think you pointed in the direction, there you go.
David Simon
Got it. Okay.
Michael Mueller
Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator
Caitlin Burrows, Goldman Sachs.
Haendel St. Juste
Hi everyone. Maybe just another question on kind of acquisitions or capital allocation generally, but it sounds like you were targeting the Kering acquisition for a while, and I imagine there are many other deals that you've assessed over the past couple of years. So I was wondering if you could talk about the rest of the acquisition properties that might be out there that could be attractive to you and how you're balancing perhaps buying those versus your stock versus more redevelopment versus increasing the dividend, realizing that you're kind of doing a little bit of all of that.
David Simon
Yeah. Listen, I would say, Caitlin, that we're not there's no big, big deal that is on the drawing board. So we're still interested in a few high-quality transactions. We're working on them. There's no guarantee. But I think since there's no big, big deal, we're going to do it all. And that's kind of my philosophy right now.
So we may if there were a big deal to do you can define big deal, but several billion dollars, billions of dollars, let's say, then we might have to readjust our thinking. But I think we're going to the mindset right now is we can do it all. Remember, we've delevered. And so we're still working on a couple high-quality transactions, but they're not like we're not going to tip the scales from a leverage or financial consequence or capacity point of view.
And as you know, development and redevelopment is a 3-year you build a house you buy a house, that's one thing. If you build it, you got 3 years to stroke the check every year, so or every month, unless you have a really nice contractor.
So honestly, I think we're going to do it all. Redevelop -- we don't mind buying our stock back. Obviously, subject to market conditions, we have the capacity to do so. And then I think redevelopment and development, we announced Nashville. We're really excited about that land. It's in the growth corridor. It's on an interstate, great ingress, egress, visibility, terrific long term, 100-acre site.
So we got stuff going on in Asia on development. Not being really on new development in Europe. So just maybe a couple of things here or there. But we're also looking at expanding some of our better assets like a Woodbury or a Toronto Premium Outlet or a Desert Hills, et cetera. So that stuff is high priority. So right now obviously, things change. But right now, we're planning to keep operating the same way we're operating, a little bit of everything.
Caitlin Burrows
Sounds like a lot of opportunity. Great, thanks.
David Simon
Thank you.
Operator
Haendel St. Juste, Mizuho.
Haendel St. Juste
Hey there, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Good to hear you, David. My question, I guess, I wanted to go back a bit more to your plan on investing a bit more on your B assets here. I guess I'm curious how you're able to generate the 12% returns versus, I think, the 8% to 9% we've seen in more of your A projects here in the last couple of years. Is it the lower rent basis? Are you seeing, I guess, stronger -- any sense of stronger demand for space in those -- in any of those B malls? And is 12% more of an anomaly or more the norm for these B mall investments you're making?
David Simon
Yeah. I think the simple thing is right now, we have little to no income. But when we always give you a number on return, we're always backing out existing income. But in this case, if you have an empty box or empty space, there's no existing income. And that really drives the kind of the incremental return. That's the biggest element of it.
And they're not all the 12% -- I kind of referred to what we see at Smith Haven, but they're not all that way. But in a lot of cases, it's just empty space or an empty box. And it's income basically, there's no offset against it because there's no existing retailer or and then it's just the capital we have to put in to do it.
Haendel St. Juste
Got it. I appreciate that. And just thinking about that 12%, is that kind of reflective of the incremental risk return or risk premium perhaps for some of these assets? Just curious how that perhaps would...
David Simon
I think that's a good point, but I would recharacterize. So let's say there's and again, our B malls are probably some better than A malls. But let's just take a B mall and -- where we think the value very simplistically is an A cap rate, okay? We wouldn't want to invest in that asset at a six return because that would be dilutive to NAV.
So part of what you're going to see and are seeing as we really look to improve that kind of portfolio is if we can't make NAV-accretive investments, we won't do it. So we're better off, in that case, just managing the cash flow to the best of our abilities. So I understand your point. I kind of recharacterized it not because of risk. It's not really risk adjusted. It's more, what's the value of the asset? And will this add to the value of that asset? Follow what I'm saying?
Haendel St. Juste
Absolutely. And that's partly what I was getting at, so I appreciate that.
Operator
Linda Tsai, Jefferies.
Linda Yu Tsai
Regarding the comment that you buy only really good stuff, after Kering, do you see more opportunities abroad or domestically?
David Simon
I would say mostly domestic just because it's got to be really unique, which is what we saw the mall, which is rare. And again, as I mentioned earlier, I think I talked to them -- hard to remember, but it was definitely a couple of years pre-COVID. So I just think there's very few jewels like that in Europe that makes sense with what we do in Europe, if you understand what I'm saying. So we're not going to buy a mall in Europe just to have one mall in Europe. So the outlet business, we view it a little differently. So I would say by -- because of that, it's got to be really unique and more domestic. I'd say more domestic.
Linda Yu Tsai
And then how are you feeling about the consumer right now and -- high versus low end, US versus Europe?
David Simon
Well, I think they're very cautious in Europe. And the US consumer is still -- I'm still nervous about the lower-end consumer. The better to the upper income, I feel pretty confident about that. A lot of whipsaws going on left and right. So it's very hard to predict. But generally, still concerned about the lower end, pretty bullish on the upper to high-end consumer.
Operator
Ronald Kamdem, Morgan Stanley
Ronald Kamdem
If we could just go back to sort of the strong performance last year. Wondering if we could dig in a little bit between sort of the outlets and the mall business. Any sort of callout? What drove the performance? Is it traffic? Is it higher ticket prices, so on and so forth? And the second part of the question is really -- are you seeing any impact from the strong dollar on tourist centers?
Brian McDade
So Ron, it's Brian. There wasn't a big bifurcation kind of between asset classes. I think all 3 platforms performed exceedingly well. You did see the outlet in The Mills, which generally skew a little bit more value-oriented, outperform a little bit into the fourth quarter. It wasn't really kind of an anomaly, just kind of expected performance.
And we've not seen any real-time impact yet to the tourist-oriented centers, but we're February 4. So still early in the year. But we would expect to see -- or if we continue to see dollar strength, you can see some impact over the course of the year, certainly in our translations of our foreign earnings.
David Simon
And I would just say, when we talk about reenergizing on the assets, don't just think malls. Think outlets, think a few of our Mills. So it's a wide portfolio focus, not just when people talk B, they always think malls. But for us, it's across our entire domestic portfolio.
Operator
This concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back to David Simon for any closing comments.
David Simon
Okay. Thank you, everybody, and look forward to talking in the future. Thank you.
Operator
This concludes the teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.