Q4 Results Support NL REITs' Upbeat View

NEW YORK CITY—Lexington Realty Trust’s solid fourth-quarter performance, which the company reported last week, bears out the bullish projections that executives at net lease REITs have made recently. Company funds from operations rose 12% to $65.7 million year over year, and LXP ended the year with its portfolio 97.6% leased.

“The successful execution of our business plan in 2013 has positioned us for strong growth” in FFO for 2014, T. Wilson Eglin, LXP’s president and CEO, said when Q4 numbers were announced this past Thursday. FFO growth, he added, will be driven by the $717.6 million of investments LXP made last year, more than half in Q4, “and our ongoing commitment to lowering our cost of capital, which resulted in the company reducing its financing costs to 4.7% while extending its weighted-average debt maturity to 7.0 years.”