Yahoo Finance

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 a 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 and redevelopment opportunities are growing within our portfolio. We delevered 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 will cover our fourth quarter results in more detail and provide our outlook for 2025.

Brian J. McDade -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, David. 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 eight 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 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 operation 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 four to five 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, Aeropostale, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Lucky, and Nautica, with JCPenney and its exclusive private brands. Catalyst 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 Shein. Turning to the balance sheet. During '24 -- 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 31st. Now moving on to our 2025 guidance. Our real estate FFO and -- 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.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Great, thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. [Operator instructions] One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Jeff Spector from Bank of America.

Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Spector -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. Now 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's Stars, the Meet Me @themall 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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 ShopSimon.

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, Valentine's Day. Basically, every major event that occurs within the U.S., we try to drive an event around that -- 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 ShopSimon, marketing events. You put it all together, we're leaps and bounds compared to what else is out there.

Jeffrey Spector -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Steve Sakwa from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa -- Analyst

Yes, 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 I guess, to tie that into NOI growth, you've talked about greater than 3%, but you've certainly beaten 4% for the last like three in a row. So what are we missing on the 3% front? And maybe just comment on pricing power. Thank you.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Well, let me just talk about the 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 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 are being conservative. Obviously, there's pretty good animal spirits in the U.S. 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 is growth. 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 were new. So what's driving a lot of what we do is we are 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, tenant bankruptcies, etc. But we still feel like we have upside in our occupancy. We are 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 until then.

Operator

Next question is from Michael Goldsmith from UBS. Please go ahead.

Michael Goldsmith -- Analyst

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 100 basis points? Thanks.

Brian J. McDade -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

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 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 three 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 -- Analyst

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Operator

Next question is from Craig Mailman from Citi. Please go ahead.

Nick Joseph -- Analyst

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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, listen, I don't -- it's interesting. Just our first -- I don't know where every retailer sources their goods. But if you take Catalyst as an example, they only source 20% of their goods, with all the brands of about 20 -- in China, OK? So -- and when we talked to Catalyst, their view of it is -- with respect to China, that they'll 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 kind of 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 by -- day-to-day decision-making. And it's relatively reduced amount for the retailers.

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 a Temu, where they shipped purposely under the $800. Our Congress is taking it 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, etc., 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.

Nick Joseph -- Analyst

It's very helpful.

Operator

Our next question is from Floris Van Dijkum from Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Floris Van Dijkum -- Analyst

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.

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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 that 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, Italy 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 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 -- we couldn't have picked a better asset in terms of this.

Floris Van Dijkum -- Analyst

Thanks, David.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Floris.

Operator

Next question is from Greg McGinniss from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Greg McGinniss -- Analyst

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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 are 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 are able to kind of reenergize our focus on an asset like that. But the list of those is long so -- but 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.

Greg McGinniss -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb -- Analyst

Hey, good evening. David, good to hear you. And I'm sure that people out at Smithtown kind of 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, prepandemic, 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 signed 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 prepandemic when the core portfolio would just -- was really just humming along.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Well, the $12.40 to $12.65 excludes Catalyst. The other investments in OPI are small. So they're -- and again, they're neither -- 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, we said, at least 3%. I think, we've said at least 3% in the last two years, maybe three, I don't remember, three years, Brian is saying. 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 are going to do smart deals.

We're prudent with a hell of a balance sheet. And I think -- and we're lease, lease, lease. I think, it's not overly complicated. And then, Catalyst will -- it's, obviously, 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, but 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 -- Analyst

OK. Good to see the magic. Thank you, David.

Operator

Our next question is from Juan Sanabria from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Juan C. Sanabria -- Analyst

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 as just like a second -- or part B of the question, how has the S&O pipeline changed, if at all, over time? And could you just give us where it is as of year-end, please?

Brian J. McDade -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Juan, it's Brian. S&O at the year-end 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 are in the process of renewals in year-end leasing. And so, ultimately, we would expect that number to come down throughout the year.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

I just would say, we're slightly -- for the life of me, I don't 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 signed, I should say. But we've got commitments on a lot of them, sure.

Operator

Next question is from Vince Tibone from Green Street. Please go ahead.

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

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 four to five 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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I'll -- yes, 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 are 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 to start a 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 -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

No, that's really helpful. If I can maybe squeeze in one more clarification. When you say joint ventures, like is Simon typically like a 10% or 20% partner in the nonretail portion? Or are you an 80% owner of the nonretail? Just trying to get a sense of appetite for nonretail.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. No, no, no, Vince, they're usually 50-50.

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, no problem.

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Mike Mueller from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Mike Mueller -- Analyst

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 U.S. asset would compare today? Do you think it'd be similar or stronger or weaker?

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

U.S. asset -- I missed the question. Can you say it one more -- I didn't understand it. Can you rephrase it?

Mike Mueller -- Analyst

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 U.S., 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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 U.S.

And obviously, that calculus is important as to how we think about this. How's that?

Mike Mueller -- Analyst

That was good. I think, you pointed in the direction, there you go. OK, appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Caitlin Burrows from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Caitlin Burrows -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, listen, I would say, Caitlin, that we're not -- there's no big, big deal that is on the drawing board. So we are 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 are 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 three-year -- just -- you build a house -- you buy a house, that's one thing. If you build it, you got three years to stroke the check every year, so -- or 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 are 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, etc. 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 -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Sounds like a lot of opportunity. Great. Thanks.

Operator

Next question is from Haendel St. Juste from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Haendel St. Juste -- Analyst

Hey, there, good evening. Thanks for taking my question, and 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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 are 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 -- Analyst

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 E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 people's 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, OK? We wouldn't want to invest in that asset at a six cap 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 -- Analyst

Absolutely. And that's partly what I was getting at, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Linda Tsai from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Linda Tsai -- Analyst

Yes, hi. Regarding the comment that you buy only really good stuff, after Kering, do you see more opportunities abroad or domestically?

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

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 Tsai -- Analyst

Thanks. And then, how are you feeling about the consumer right now and -- high versus low end, U.S. versus Europe?

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I think they're very cautious in Europe. And the U.S. 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.

Linda Tsai -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Ronald Kamdem from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ronald Kamdem -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great. Hey, 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? Thanks.

Brian J. McDade -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

So Ron, it's Brian. There wasn't a big bifurcation kind of between asset classes. I think, all three 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 4th. 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.

Ronald Kamdem -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Thanks so much.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, 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.

Ronald Kamdem -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Helpful. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back to David Simon for any closing comments.

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

OK. Thank you, everybody, and look forward to talking in the future. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Thomas Ward -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations

David E. Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Brian J. McDade -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Jeffrey Spector -- Analyst

David Simon -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Jeff Spector -- Analyst

Steve Sakwa -- Analyst

Michael Goldsmith -- Analyst

Brian McDade -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Nick Joseph -- Analyst

Floris Van Dijkum -- Analyst

Greg McGinniss -- Analyst

Alexander Goldfarb -- Analyst

Juan C. Sanabria -- Analyst

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Mike Mueller -- Analyst

Caitlin Burrows -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Haendel St. Juste -- Analyst

Linda Tsai -- Analyst

Ronald Kamdem -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

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Simon Property Group (SPG) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool