Chris Czarnecki, CEO of Broadstone Net Lease, Inc. (NYSE: BNL), participated in a video interview in conjunction with Nareit’s REITweek: 2022 Investor Conference in New York on June 7-9.
Czarnecki said that Broadstone Net Lease announced $210 million in acquisitions in Q1, which was the result of work the REIT did in 2021.
“A lot the reasons we went public at the end of 2020 was to gain broader access to the capital markets and all the tools that affords us, especially as a growing net lease company,” he said.
Czarnecki said that as a diversified REIT with properties across industrial, health care, retail, and office, Broadstone’s approach differs based on each sector’s performance. Throughout the pandemic, he noted that Broadstone’s industrial and health care properties remained strong, but restaurants generally struggled. Turning to its office tenants, he added that Broadstone is currently paused on acquisitions within the sector.
“We’ve been really actively engaging with [office] tenants, more on what their long-term utilization plans are,” Czarnecki said. “With just 15 assets, that’s a relatively small part of our portfolio, and so our view is we can take a very patient and methodical approach toward asset management.”
Turning to a potential recession, Czarnecki added that Broadstone believes it’s “built for a choppy environment,” and the company stresses this to investors.