Cousins Properties CUZ has completed the prior announced Vantage South End acquisition for $328.5 million. The said property is a 639,000-square-foot lifestyle office property in the thriving South End submarket in Charlotte, NC.

The property enjoys a diverse rent roll, including several corporate headquarters, with strong lease terms. Its major customers include Lending Tree, Alston & Bird, Hartford Insurance HIG, CBRE CBRE, Allspring Global Investments and Grant Thornton. Currently 97% leased, with a weighted average lease term exceeding nine years, the acquisition of Vantage South End strengthens Cousins’ position in a high-demand submarket.

The acquisition offers immediate earnings accretion and aligns with Cousins’ long-term focus on high-quality, amenity-rich office properties in the Sun Belt. Further solidifying Cousins' market footprint and improving the quality and stability of its cash flow, the acquisition proves to be a value-accretive proposition to the shareholders.

Cousins Properties has been making efforts to upgrade its portfolio quality with trophy assets’ acquisitions and opportunistic developments in high-growth Sun Belt submarkets. From 2019 through Oct. 24, 2024, apart from the TIER REIT transaction, the company acquired 3.6 million square feet of operating properties for $1.1 billion and completed 2.2 million square feet of development at total project costs of $858 million.

Going forward, Cousins Properties’ high-quality office portfolio, impressive tenant roster, opportunistic investments and developments in best sub-markets and strong balance sheet are expected to drive its growth. However, a continuation of the hybrid work environment and high supply in the office real estate market is expected to adversely impact its pricing power.

Over the past six months, shares of this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company have risen 33.4%, well ahead of the industry’s upside of 12.8%.

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Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are Welltower WELL and COPT DEFENSE PR CDP, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Welltower’s 2024 FFO per share has been raised marginally northward over the past month to $4.26.

The Zacks consensus estimate for COPT DEFENSE PR’s current-year FFO per share has been revised marginally upward over the past week to $2.58.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs

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