ORLANDO—Retail REIT National Retail Properties grew its revenues in the first quarter. The company's posted $104.06 million in revenues in the first three months of the 2014 compared to $92.46 million in the year-ago period.

The REIT invested $94 million in commercial real estate, including the acquisition of 47 properties with an aggregate 309,000 square feet of gross leasable area at an initial cash yield of 7.7%. National Retail also sold four properties with net proceeds of $11.2 million.

"We believe that our strategy of focusing on net-leased retail real estate continues to offer attractive risk-adjusted returns,” says Craig Macnab, CEO of National Retail. “Our portfolio continues to be very well occupied and we are finding attractive returns as we deploy new capital.”

National Retail invests primarily in high-quality retail properties subject generally to long-term, net leases. At the end of the first quarter, the REIT owned 1,903 properties in 47 states with a gross leasable area of approximately 20.6 million square feet.

“2014 is off to a good start and our balance sheet remains in great shape to fund additional acquisitions,” says Macnab. “We will continue to be selective but as we identify new acquisitions, funded with our low cost of capital, we expect to continue to drive per share growth."

National Retail announced an increase in 2014 FFO guidance from a range of $1.94 to $1.99 to a range of $1.95 to $2.00 per share before any impairment expense. 2014 AFFO is estimated to be $2.01 to $2.06 per share.

In a research note, RBC Capital Markets analysts Rich Moore, Wes Golladay, Michael Carroll, and Mike Salinksy called the first quarter “solid” with key metrics at or near all-time highs. They noted that the REIT has already completed about a third of planned acquisition volume for the year at attractive cap rates. They rated the shares “outperform” with a $38 target.

“National Retail Properties posted 1Q14 FFO/share of $0.51, which beat our estimate by a penny and met consensus,” the analysts wrote. “Interestingly, no line item contained significant variance with our estimate given that the overall variance was approximately a half cent.”