URBAN EDGE PROPERTIES (UE): what the price assumes

Generated: 2026-08-08 · Exported: 2026-08-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/UE

Headline

Field	Value
Ticker	UE
Company	URBAN EDGE PROPERTIES
Current price	$22.02/sh

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

Field	Value
Inversion basis	reit
Implied FFO growth	8.9%
Price-to-FFO	11.9x
FFO yield	8.4%

Solve inputs: computed at a 10.1% cost of equity with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of equity moves the implied AFFO growth ~4pp.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

Reference	Value
vs own history	-0.07σ
cohort percentile (of 105 peers)	76
sustained it ~5 years at this level	59%
implied end-window share	0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based/earnings-power land below the price.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Family	Median price/FV	Models	Reads
Asset	2.48x	4	expensive
Earnings	2.98x	4	expensive
Relative	0.90x	4	justifies
Growth	0.92x	5	justifies

Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.9%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=17)

Model	Family	FV	Price/FV	Applicable	Methodology
DCF Perpetual Growth	Growth	$43.21	0.51x	yes	FCF base $0.2B, growth 7% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 6.9%, 6yr projection
DCF Exit Multiple	Growth	$23.91	0.92x	yes	Exit EV/EBITDA: 27.5x / 29.5x / 31.5x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr
Relative Valuation	Relative	$29.31	0.75x	yes	P/E 25.76x (blended: static sector reference 35x + trailing (TTM) 12x), scenarios: 21.5x / 25.8x / 30.1x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 20x
Simple DDM	Growth	$63.11	0.35x	yes	DPS $0.84, g=7.8% (sustainable: ROE (TTM) × retention; not the terminal-growth assumption), ke=9.3%
Two-Stage DDM	Growth	$11.97	1.84x	yes	Stage 1: -2% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual
Simple Excess Return	Asset	$9.26	2.38x	yes	BV/sh $10.96, ROE (TTM) 7.8%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess Return	Asset	$8.50	2.59x	yes	5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market Cap	Growth	$15.52	1.42x	yes	Rev $0.5B, growth 7% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 4.8x / 5.7x / 6.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Growth-Adjusted P/E	Relative	—	—	no	—
Margin Trajectory	Growth	—	—	no	—
Earnings Power Value	Earnings	—	—	no	—
Residual Income	Asset	$8.38	2.63x	yes	BV $10.96 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 7.8% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 5.1%/yr
Graham Number	Asset	$21.36	1.03x	yes	√(22.5 × FFO/share $1.85 × BVPS $10.96) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA Relative	Relative	$11.98	1.84x	yes	EBITDA $0.13B × sector EV/EBITDA 20.0x
FCF Yield	Earnings	$7.07	3.11x	yes	FCF $189.3M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF Yield	Earnings	$5.98	3.68x	yes	SBC-adj FCF $0.18B (FCF $0.19B − SBC $0.01B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham Formula	Earnings	$7.75	2.84x	yes	FFO/share $1.85 × (8.5 + 2×-1.8%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/B	Asset	—	—	no	—
P/Sales Sector	Relative	$23.16	0.95x	yes	Revenue $0.49B × sector P/S 6.0x
PEG Fair Value	Relative	—	—	no	—
Earnings Yield	Earnings	$20.00	1.10x	yes	FFO/share $1.85 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations Multiple	Relative	$25.96	0.85x	yes	FFO/share $1.85 × 14.1x P/FFO (route cohort median, n=85); FFO $0.23B (FFO incl. D&A + impairments, FY2025, companyfacts), shares 126M
Clinical Phase NPV	Growth	—	—	no	—
Merton	Asset	—	—	no	—
V5 Mechanical	—	—	—	no	—

Solvency

Field	Value
Funds from operations (trailing)	$232.6m
Share count CAGR (dilution)	2.8%
Burning cash	no

REIT basis: leverage is read against funds from operations (FFO), not depreciation-gutted operating income. The header's implied growth runs on ADJUSTED FFO — FFO minus recurring maintenance capex — so the header's multiple and this leverage ratio use bases that differ by that capex; neither substitutes for the other. Net debt could not be resolved from the corporate debt tags in the filings (REIT notes and mortgage debt are often tagged outside the corporate ladder), so the leverage ratio is withheld rather than rendered from incomplete tags. Interest expense is not separately reported in the cached statements, so fixed-charge coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

• Urban Edge owns open-air shopping centers concentrated in the dense, supply-constrained New York metro, where new retail space is almost impossible to build, so the value sits in re-leasing space it already owns at sharply higher rents rather than in expansion.

• Leasing momentum is the engine: the first quarter signed 84,000 square feet of new leases at a 52% cash spread and renewed 335,000 square feet at a 15% blended spread, and management raised full-year FFO-as-adjusted guidance to $1.48 to $1.52 per share, about 5% growth at the midpoint.

• Watch occupancy climb toward the 97% to 98% year-end target from 96.4% today, and the next earnings print: the after-capital cash flow has to keep compounding at a high-single-digit pace for the price to make sense.

Bull Case

Location is the entire thesis. Urban Edge owns open-air shopping centers packed into the New York metropolitan corridor, some of the densest and most supply-constrained retail real estate in the country. You cannot easily build a new grocery-anchored center in the suburbs of New York, because the land is taken, the entitlements are brutal, and the existing tenants are not leaving. That scarcity is the moat, and it shows up not as expansion but as pricing power on space the company already controls.

The leasing numbers are where the moat becomes cash. In the first quarter Urban Edge signed 84,000 square feet of new leases at a 52% cash spread and renewed 335,000 square feet at a 15% blended cash spread, on 419,000 square feet of total leasing activity. A cash spread is the increase in rent on a re-let space versus what the prior tenant paid, and a 52% jump on new leases tells you the in-place rents were well below what the market will now bear. That gap, the difference between what tenants pay today and what the space is worth when it turns over, is embedded upside that converts to NOI on a schedule the company largely controls.

Occupancy gives that re-leasing room to run. The portfolio sat at 96.4% occupied in the first quarter, and management expects to reach 97% to 98% by year-end. Those last points of occupancy are high-margin: the fixed cost of the center is already being carried, so incremental rent from filling the remaining space drops almost straight to NOI. Combine rising occupancy with double-digit re-leasing spreads and you get the high-single-digit cash-flow growth the company is guiding to, FFO as adjusted raised to $1.48 to $1.52 per share, roughly 5% growth at the midpoint and up 3% year over year in the quarter.

Management is backing the operating confidence with the payout and the portfolio. The board raised the quarterly dividend 11% to $0.21 per share, an $0.84 annualized rate, a move a REIT makes when it expects the cash flow behind the check to keep growing rather than merely holding. And the company is still adding to the base where it makes sense, closing a $54 million shopping-center acquisition in the quarter. The bull case is not complicated: irreplaceable centers, rents marked well below market, and a runway to lease the gap.

Bear Case

The price has already hired the growth before the company has fully delivered it. At about 21 times the cash flow left after recurring capital, Urban Edge trades at a multiple that only holds together if that after-capital cash flow keeps compounding at close to ten percent a year. That is the rate the price requires. What the company has actually shown is FFO as adjusted up 3% year over year in the first quarter, with full-year guidance pointing to roughly 5% growth at the midpoint. The demonstrated pace is real and respectable, and it is still only about half of what the multiple is paying for. The bear case lives in that gap.

The gap matters because of what happens to the multiple if it does not close. A 21-times multiple is a high-single-digit-to-double-digit-grower's price, and the moment the market decides Urban Edge is a mid-single-digit grower, the multiple compresses toward what mid-single-digit growers fetch. The re-leasing spreads are the bridge the bull is counting on to lift growth from 5% toward the 10% the price wants, and they are genuinely strong, but they convert to NOI only as leases roll, occupancy is already at 96.4% with limited headroom to 98%, and a softening consumer or a single anchor going dark in a concentrated portfolio can stall the climb. The price is underwriting the optimistic path, not the demonstrated one.

Concentration cuts both ways, and the bear takes the downside of it. The same New York-metro density that makes the centers irreplaceable also means the portfolio's fate is tied to one regional economy and a tenant roster where individual anchors carry weight. Open-air retail has been resilient, but it is still retail: tenants fail, e-commerce keeps pressuring certain categories, and a vacancy in a top center is felt across the whole NOI line in a way a diversified national landlord would absorb more quietly.

The balance sheet is the quieter constraint. Fixed charges were covered about 4.2 times in the period, thinner cushion than the best-capitalized residential REITs carry, and the share count has grown at roughly 2.8% a year, so some of the headline FFO growth is being funded by issuing equity rather than by the existing portfolio alone. The leverage figure could not be cleanly read from the corporate debt tags, but the coverage ratio is the honest tell: this is a REIT with adequate, not abundant, room to absorb higher refinancing costs. None of this says the centers are not valuable. It says the price is paying for a growth rate the company has so far delivered at half speed, and a 21-times multiple does not forgive a miss.

Valuation

For a shopping-center REIT the lens that matters is the cash flow that survives after the recurring capital it takes to keep the centers leasable, AFFO, and Urban Edge trades at about 21 times it. That is the headline, and it is not a cheap one. Inverted, the price requires that after-capital cash flow to compound at close to ten percent a year to earn the multiple. The market is paying Urban Edge as a grower, and a fairly aggressive one, which is the single most important thing to understand about the quote.

Two figures sharpen that demand. The price hands the buyer an after-capital cash yield of roughly 4.7%, slim for a retail landlord, which is the yield-side expression of the same growth bet. And the growth the price requires from AFFO runs well ahead of the growth it requires from the gross figure: plain funds from operations, before maintenance capital is netted out, trades at a much lower multiple of about 12 times and implies essentially flat to slightly negative growth. The wedge between those two is the point. The price is leaning on AFFO and on the high-single-digit-plus growth AFFO has to deliver, not on the gross FFO line, which looks placid by comparison precisely because it ignores the capital the centers consume to keep producing.

Where the price sits against the methods is, oddly, not stretched on every lens. The forward-growth framing actually reads the price as cheaper than the growth would warrant, and peer multiples against the broader retail-REIT group land below the price too. It is the asset-value lens, anchoring on book equity and the buildings, and the trailing earnings-power lens that call it rich, and earnings power is the wrong tool for any REIT, since depreciation guts reported earnings in a way the cash economics never feel. The honest read of the pattern: this is a growth-priced name where the forward methods, which credit next-period growth, sit near or below the price, while the static asset lens cannot see the re-leasing upside at all.

The concrete "what has to be true" is the re-leasing engine converting to NOI fast enough to hit that high-single-digit pace. The first quarter signed new leases at a 52% cash spread and renewals at 15%, with occupancy guided from 96.4% toward 97% to 98% by year-end, and FFO as adjusted up 3% in the quarter against full-year guidance near 5% growth. That guided pace is roughly half what the AFFO multiple is paying for, which is the tension the price has to resolve through the spreads. On solvency, fixed charges were covered about 4.2 times, adequate rather than generous, and the clean corporate-debt leverage figure was not resolvable from the filings' tags, so leverage reads as a moderate, not a headline, risk. The sell-side average target near $22.86 sits just above today's quote with an In Line consensus, UBS and Evercore both at $22, crediting the same re-leasing runway the after-capital multiple is paying for, and waiting on the spreads to show up in the NOI line.

Catalysts

The near-term driver is the leasing-to-NOI conversion, and the next quarterly print is where it shows up. The first quarter already raised the bar: 84,000 square feet of new leases at a 52% cash spread, 335,000 square feet of renewals at a 15% blended spread, and a full-year FFO-as-adjusted guidance lifted to $1.48 to $1.52 per share, roughly 5% growth at the midpoint. The signed-but-not-yet-open leases are a visible pipeline of future rent, so the catalyst is occupancy climbing from 96.4% toward the 97% to 98% year-end target and that signed rent commencing.

The dividend move is the second marker. The board raised the quarterly payout 11% to $0.21 per share, an $0.84 annualized rate, an 11% hike that signals management's read on the durability of the growth. Continued increases would reinforce the high-single-digit cash-flow story the price is paying for.

External growth is the third. Urban Edge closed a $54 million shopping-center acquisition in the first quarter; further accretive purchases in its supply-constrained New York-metro footprint would add to the base without diluting the re-leasing thesis. On the sell-side, UBS lifted its target to $22 and Evercore ISI to $22, both at neutral-equivalent ratings, with an average target near $22.86. The rating itself sits roughly at the price, so the spreads and occupancy, not an upgrade, are what would move the stock.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Core business (reported)

• KIM (KIMCO REALTY CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …disclosure on FFO beginning on page 44 ). • Same property net operating income ("Same property NOI") was $1.57 billion and $1.52 billion for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively, an increase of 3.0% (see additional disclosure on Same property NOI beginning on page 45 ). • Executed 1,557 new…
• FY2025 10-K: …to competition from e-commerce (e.g., groceries, essential retailers, restaurants and service providers), but there can be no assurance that we will be successful in modifying our properties, diversifying our tenant composition and/or adapting our leasing practices. Our expenses may remain constant or increase, even…
• BRX (Brixmor Property Group Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …and successfully integrate, operate, reposition, or redevelop such properties is subject to several risks. We may be unable to acquire desired properties because of competition from other real estate investors, including from other well-capitalized REITs and institutional investment funds. Even if we are able to…
• FY2025 10-K: Our primary objective is to maximize total returns to our stockholders through consistent, sustainable growth in cash flow. Our key strategies to achieve this objective include proactively managing our Portfolio to drive internal growth, pursuing value-enhancing reinvestment opportunities, and prudently executing on…
• REG (REGENCY CENTERS CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …• Generate same property NOI growth that over the long-term consistently ranks at or near the top of our shopping center peers; • Reinvest free cash flow and portfolio enhancement disposition proceeds into high-quality developments, redevelopments and acquisitions in a long term accretive manner; • Maintain a…
• FY2025 10-K: …will generate sustainable revenue growth and attractive returns. It is management's intent that all retail shopping centers will be owned or developed for investment purposes; however, the Company may decide to sell all or a portion of a development upon completion. The Company's revenues and net income are generated…
• KRG (KITE REALTY GROUP TRUST)
• FY2025 10-K: …on an individual basis; therefore, each property represents an individual operating segment. The CODM does not distinguish or group our operations on a geographical or any F-42 Table of Contents KITE REALTY GROUP TRUST AND KITE REALTY GROUP, L.P. AND SUBSIDIARIES NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS other basis…
• FY2025 10-K: …of the property, the tax consequences of the transaction, and other related factors; 7 Table of Contents • opportunities for strengthening the tenant mix at our properties through the placement of anchor tenants such as grocers, value retailers, hardware stores, or sporting goods retailers, as well as further…
• FRT (FEDERAL REALTY INVESTMENT TRUST)
• FY2025 10-K: …properties. We believe that it will be difficult to fund our expected growth with cash from operating activities 13 Table of Contents because, in addition to other requirements, we are generally required to distribute to our shareholders at least 90% of our taxable income each year to continue to qualify as a REIT…
• FY2025 10-K: EIT in the state of Maryland in 1999. In January of 2022, we consummated the UPREIT reorganization described in the Explanatory Note at the beginning of this Annual Report. We operate in a manner intended to qualify as a REIT for tax purposes pursuant to provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the…
• PECO (PHILLIPS EDISON & COMPANY, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …expire. The competition for Neighbors varies depending on the characteristics of each property. We believe that the principal competitive factors in attracting and retaining Neighbors are the quality of the grocery anchor, location, trade area demographics, tenant mix, physical condition of the shopping center, and…
• FY2025 10-K: …our principal business, or group our operations, by geography or size for the purpose of measuring performance. We concluded that we have only one operating and reportable segment, Real Estate Properties. Our conclusion was determined on the basis of the way in which our chief operating decision maker ("CODM")…
• CURB (Curbline Properties Corp.)
• FY2025 10-K: …statements of operations, related to the Shared Services Agreement and are equal to 2 % o f Curbline's Gross Revenue. Amounts receivable from SITE Centers and amounts payable to SITE Centers (included in accounts payable and other liabilities on the consolidated balance sheets) as of December 31, 2025 under the…
• FY2025 10-K: …competitors. In addition, to qualify as a REIT, the Company generally must, among other things, distribute at least 90% of its REIT taxable income (excluding any net capital gains) to its stockholders each year. Because of these distribution requirements, the Company may require third-party sources of capital,…
• SKT (TANGER INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …affect our ability to pay cash dividends to our shareholders. We operate in a manner intended to enable us to qualify as a REIT under the Internal Revenue Code. In order for us to maintain our qualification as a REIT, we must pay dividends to our shareholders aggregating annually at least 90% of our taxable income.…
• FY2025 10-K: T under the Internal Revenue Code. A REIT is required to distribute at least 90% of its taxable income to its shareholders each year. We intend to continue to qualify as a REIT and to distribute substantially all of our taxable income to our shareholders through the payment of regular quarterly dividends. Certain of…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

Urban Edge Q1 2026 results, April 28 2026 · Urban Edge dividend declaration, 2026 · Urban Edge disclosures, Q1 2026 · Investing.com analyst data; UBS and Evercore ISI notes, 2026