Getty Realty (NYSE:GTY) executives highlighted steady portfolio performance, accelerating investment activity, and a reaffirmed 2026 outlook during the company’s fourth-quarter and year-end 2025 earnings call.
2025 results driven by rent growth and acquisitions
Chief Executive Officer Christopher Constant said stable rental income from Getty’s existing portfolio, combined with “strong yields from acquisitions,” supported earnings growth in 2025. The company reported that annualized base rent increased by nearly 12% during the year. Adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per share rose 5% year over year in the fourth quarter and increased 3.8% for the full year, which Constant said came in at the high end of the company’s increased earnings guidance.
Constant said Getty’s in-place portfolio remains “essentially full” on occupancy and rent collections, with stable rent coverage. He also pointed to ongoing consumer trends benefiting convenience and automotive retail properties, including demand for “convenience, speed, and do it for me services.”
Portfolio metrics and rent coverage
Outgoing Chief Investment Officer and Chief Operating Officer Mark Olear said that at year-end Getty’s lease portfolio included 1,169 net lease properties and two active redevelopment sites. Excluding the active redevelopments, occupancy was 99.7%, and the weighted average lease term was 9.9 years.
Olear added that the portfolio spans 44 states plus Washington, D.C., with 61% of annualized base rent coming from top 50 MSAs and 77% from top 100 MSAs. The company has performance insight into approximately 95% of annualized base rent through site-level reporting or public company disclosures.
On rent coverage, Olear reported a trailing 12-month rent coverage ratio of 2.5x for properties where Getty receives site-level reporting. In response to a question about a dip in coverage, management said the move from 2.6x to 2.5x was “really a rounding issue” and primarily reflected the roll-off of a historically high fuel-margin quarter in the convenience store sector from the trailing calculation. Management said other asset classes such as car washes were stable and that convenience store performance remained strong, though fuel margins were no longer at the prior peak level.
Investment activity, sector diversification, and the pipeline
Constant said Getty invested approximately $270 million in 2025 at an initial cash yield of 7.9%, and emphasized several strategic themes: expanding in Texas, increasing exposure to collision repair, entering travel centers, and continuing to scale drive-through quick service restaurant (QSR) investments.
Among the year’s notable transactions, he highlighted:
- A $100 million sale-leaseback closed in October for a 12-property convenience store portfolio in Houston leased to Now & Forever, which Constant described as a growing regional chain with a dominant position in densely populated Houston submarkets.
- A commitment to the collision repair sector through up to $82.5 million of development funding for 11 “new-to-industry” collision centers for a top-three operator in that sector, with a number of sites expected to open in 2026.
- The company’s first travel center investments, with four travel centers acquired for $47.1 million in 2025.
- A record year of drive-through QSR investments: nearly $40 million across 28 properties, or about 15% of 2025 investment activity.
Senior Vice President of Acquisitions RJ Ryan, who is set to succeed Olear as Chief Investment Officer at the end of February, said Getty underwrote a record $6.8 billion of potential investments in 2025. He said 54% of underwriting was focused on non-convenience store properties, including auto service centers (primarily collision centers and oil change locations), drive-through QSRs, and express tunnel car washes.
Ryan reported fourth-quarter investments of $135.4 million across 26 properties at an initial cash yield of 7.9%, with a weighted average lease term of 15 years for acquired assets in the quarter. For the full year, he said Getty invested $268.8 million, including the acquisition of 73 properties for $278.3 million (of which $23.1 million had been previously funded) and incremental development funding of $13.6 million. The weighted average initial yield was 7.9% for the year, and the weighted average lease term for acquired assets was 15.8 years.
After year-end, Ryan said Getty invested an additional $8.7 million to acquire or develop four drive-through QSRs and four auto service centers.
Management also discussed a disclosed pipeline of approximately $100 million of investments under contract, most of which the company expects to fund by the end of 2026. In the Q&A, Dickman said roughly 80% of the $100 million pipeline is in auto service (collision centers and oil change locations), with the remaining 20% across convenience and gas, drive-throughs, and car washes. He added that about 80% of the pipeline is development funding, with the balance being “regular way acquisitions” typically closing in a 60- to 90-day timeframe. Dickman said the majority of the development funding is expected to be deployed over the next 12 months, though timing depends on tenant development schedules and reimbursement requests.
Constant also pointed to the company’s broader sourcing activity, noting that in early February the team was already “north of 25%” of last year’s underwriting volume in deals under consideration. Olear attributed increased activity to continued sourcing efforts, momentum from Getty’s expanded “buy box,” and what he described as a more active selling environment coming out of year-end.
Olear said Getty’s portfolio has reached its most diversified mix in company history, noting that since the start of the current strategy the company has added 49 new tenants and that nearly 30% of annual base rent is now derived from non-convenience and gas properties. Constant said the company does not have hard category limits, but expects diversification to continue as relationships develop across multiple verticals.
Balance sheet, capital markets, and 2026 guidance
Dickman said net debt to EBITDA was 5.1x as of December 31, 2025, or 4.8x including unsettled forward equity, which he said is within Getty’s 4.5x to 5.5x leverage target range. Fixed charge coverage was 3.8x. He also noted the company closed $250 million of new unsecured notes during the fourth quarter that funded in January, with proceeds used to repay revolver borrowings. Pro forma for that transaction, Getty has $1 billion of senior unsecured notes outstanding with a weighted average interest rate of 4.5% and weighted average maturity of 6.2 years, full revolver capacity, and no debt maturities until 2028.
On equity activity, Dickman said Getty settled about 2.1 million shares during the fourth quarter for net proceeds of approximately $59.1 million and entered into new forward sale agreements for about 400,000 shares for anticipated gross proceeds of approximately $12.7 million. As of December 31, the company had about 2.1 million shares subject to outstanding forward sale agreements, anticipated to raise about $62.6 million of gross proceeds upon settlement. Dickman said that pro forma for the notes transaction Getty had more than $500 million of total liquidity, including unsettled forward equity, revolver availability, and cash.
For 2026, Dickman reaffirmed the company’s AFFO per share guidance range of $20.48 to $20.50. He emphasized that the guidance reflects the current run rate of the in-place portfolio and does not include prospective investment or capital activities. In response to a question, he confirmed that the $8.7 million of post-year-end investments were included in the run-rate guidance, while none of the $100 million pipeline under contract was included “by definition” under the company’s approach.
In other Q&A items, management said seven fourth-quarter property dispositions were largely opportunistic and tactical. Dickman said three or four properties were sold back to existing tenants, and described the overall group as a “very small portfolio” sold at a low single-digit cap rate based on the tenant’s valuation, along with other isolated dispositions. Management also discussed Arko, noting that the company viewed Arko’s recently priced transaction and stated use of proceeds to pay down debt as a credit-positive development, and reiterated comfort with the performance of its Arko-leased sites where it has site-level data.
Constant also noted a leadership transition: Ryan will become Chief Investment Officer upon Olear’s retirement at the end of February, with Constant crediting Olear for expanding Getty’s investable universe, refining underwriting, and creating a redevelopment program that has completed more than 30 value-add projects.
About Getty Realty (NYSE:GTY)
Getty Realty Corp is a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) that specializes in the acquisition, ownership and leasing of service station and convenience retail properties. The company’s portfolio consists primarily of fee-simple and ground-leased sites, which are leased to major national and regional fuel and convenience store operators under long-term, triple-net leases. This structure provides Getty Realty with a stable stream of contractual rental income and limited operational responsibilities.
Founded in 1981, Getty Realty became a publicly listed company in 2005 and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GTY.
