Joey Agree, president and CEO of Agree Realty Corp. (NYSE: ADC), joined REIT.com for a CEO Spotlight video interview during REITWeek 2014: NAREIT’s Investor Forum, held in New York.
Agree Realty is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994. The anniversary represents more than just an “important corporate milestone,” according to the company’s CEO.
“It demonstrates the core competencies of the people and the core values that we have as an organization,” Agree said.
Agree cited the launch of the company’s acquisition platform in 2010 as the most transformative move in its history. In the nearly 40 years leading up to that point, Agree Realty had focused on real estate development.
“The launch of the acquisition platform in April of 2010 has allowed us to grow our business, which we’ve doubled over the course of the last four years; grow our portfolio, which we’ve also doubled over the course of the last four years; and really broaden the spectrum of retailers in our portfolio,” he said.
As that spectrum of retailers has grown, Agree Realty’s tenant mix has tended to shift with the evolution of the economy. Those changes have come “with intent,” Agree noted. In its development, acquisition and joint-venture platforms, the company is targeting lines of business that are resistant to e-commerce.
“We’re out there looking at retailers in sectors where we don’t see either structural or cyclical changes truly affecting those businesses, most importantly through mobile e-commerce,” Agree said. “In today’s brick-and-mortar industry, there’s a lot of transformation being undertaken. We don’t believe that those changes are by any means near complete, so we’re focused on a targeted niche.”