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Americold (COLD) Boosts Portfolio With New Facility in Spain

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Americold Realty Trust (COLD - Free Report) recently announced that it has opened its facility expansion located on Poligono Industrial La Torre del Rector Calle, Santa Perpetua, Barcelona, Spain, as part of its expansion efforts.

This facility marks the fourth Americold facility in Spain. COLD’s other facilities in Spain include Valencia, Algeciras and Palau.   

With this move, this real estate investment trust, focused on ownership, operation, acquisitions and development of temperature-controlled warehouses, added 11 loading bays and 12,000 pallet positions to its portfolio. Consequently, the Santa Perpetua facility now has more than 20,000 pallet positions offering storage for frozen, chilled and ambient produce.

Customers in the region will be benefited from greater capacity in temperature-controlled products and services brought about by this new facility. Also, the facility provides order preparation, transportation and a large variety of value-added services to serve customers in Spain and across Europe.

Per George Chappelle, CEO, Americold, “We continue to expand our operations in support of our customers’ needs. This Barcelona expansion reflects our most recent investment in expanding our global presence and fulfilling our mission to help our customers feed the world.”

Americold’s facilities are an integral component of the supply chain and connects food producers, processors, distributors and retailers to consumers. It has been focusing on several acquisitions and development activities to maximize its growth opportunities.

In 2022, it closed the acquisition of De Bruyn Cold Storage which operates a single facility located in Tasmania, Australia, for $16 million.

For 2023, management anticipates development starts to be between $100 million and $200 million. The 2023 adjusted funds from operations per share is expected in the range of $1.14 - $1.24.

Analysts seem bullish on this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2023 FFO per share has been revised marginally upward over the past week to $1.91. Shares of the company have gained 6.2% in the past six months against its industry’s fall of 5.6%.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Nonetheless, macroeconomic uncertainty remains a key concern for the company. Also, rising interest rates are likely to increase borrowing costs, affecting the company’s ability to purchase or develop real estate.

Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked stocks from the REIT sector are Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE - Free Report) , Terreno Realty (TRNO - Free Report) and Service Properties Trust (SVC - Free Report) . While Alexandria Real Estate and Terreno Realty currently carry a Zacks Rank #2, Service Properties Trust sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Alexandria Real Estate’s 2023 FFO per share is pegged at $8.95.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Terreno Realty’s current-year FFO per share is pegged at $2.17.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Service Properties Trust’s 2023 FFO per share is pegged at $1.89.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents FFO — a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.

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