Aaron Halfacre, CEO of Modiv Inc. (NYSE: MDV), participated in a video interview at Nareit’s REITweek: 2023 Investor Conference, held in New York June 6-8.
Halfacre said that Modiv’s exclusive focus has been buying single-tenant industrial manufacturing properties, and that the REIT is “recycling” its office and retail legacy assets that were acquired by previous management teams.
“We think that there’s an emerging trend in the United States…to have supply chain security, [or] having more of our critical infrastructure manufactured on our shore,” he said, adding it’s often called near-shoring or on-shoring.
Halfacre added that Modiv has been transparent about intending to be a pure-play industrial manufacturing company, and this differentiates its investment focus from other publicly traded REITs.
“We focus on those types of industrial manufacturing that are not consumer-discretionary,” he said. “We’re buying companies that are really building products that are critical to the U.S. economy.”
Halfacre added that most net lease REITs have a high occupancy, but that Modiv’s current 100% occupancy rate is in part based on the originating of a number of new leases for tenants.