ADC

Agree Realty is a high-quality net-lease retail REIT focused on creditworthy, e-commerce-resistant tenants. The growth record is impressive and consistent: revenue has more than doubled from $339M in FY2021 to $718M in FY2025 (+16.4% YoY), with operating income up 12.6% to $340M and a 47.4% operating margin. Operating cash flow grew 16.7% to $504M, funding a dividend of $341M (up 12.2%) — Agree is known for its growing monthly dividend. This is a steady, externally-growing compounder.

What distinguishes ADC is balance-sheet discipline. Liabilities/equity is just 0.56x — extraordinarily conservative for a REIT — and stockholders' equity grew 13.8% to $6.27B as the company raised equity (shares up 11.9%) to fund acquisitions while keeping leverage low. That equity-funded growth is why diluted EPS was essentially flat (-0.6% to $1.77) despite net income rising 8.0% to $204M, and why GAAP ROE looks low at 3.3% (the large, lightly-levered equity base depresses the ratio; AFFO per share is the relevant REIT metric). The conservative funding model reduces refinancing and interest-rate risk relative to peers.