Mall landlord Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust is further exploring its options, including a possible sale of the company, a merger, or selling more properties as it faces upcoming loan payments.

Philadelphia-based PREIT, which was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange in December, reported its fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday and offered investors an outlook in the face of the debt it has coming due in December.

“As we noted last quarter, our plan is to spend the coming months exploring all possible outcomes available to the company as our credit facility matures, including refinancing, merger, sale, joint ventures, and selling high-quality assets and more," PREIT Chairman and CEO Joseph Coradino said on a conference call. "We have demonstrated, through our disposition history, that we are open to selling assets and we continue to work towards finalizing the sale of our multifamily land. And again, we are exploring all possible options with our investment adviser.”

PREIT was one of several mall-owner REITs to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2020 during the peak of the pandemic, which temporarily closed retail centers. PREIT reorganized and within about a month emerged from bankruptcy, and since then has been selling properties to raise cash to pay maturing debt as well as diversifying the tenant mix at its malls.

But the REIT remains financially challenged.

Its funds from operations — or FFO, a commonly used measure of operating performance and profitability among REITs — decreased in the fourth quarter compared to the prior-year period primarily due to lower net operating income, or NOI, from "same-store properties as a result of declines in expense recoveries and sales, non-same store properties as a result of the sale of our interest in Gloucester Premium Outlets and Cumberland Mall as well as higher interest expense," PREIT said. FFO for the full 2022 year also declined.

Last year, PREIT sold the Cumberland Mall in Vineland, New Jersey, for $45 million to Kohan Retail Investment Group. And it divested its stake in the Gloucester Premium Outlets in Blackwood, New Jersey, for $35.4 million to mall giant Simon Property Group, according to CoStar data. After the end of the fourth quarter, PREIT closed on the sale of its Whole Foods parcel at Plymouth Meeting Mall in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, for $27 million.

In total, since the start of 2022, PREIT has sold over $140 million in properties and used excess cash from the proceeds to pay down $184 million in debt, according to Coradino.

As of Dec. 31, PREIT said it had $107.5 million available under its first lien revolving credit facility. The company’s cash balances, when combined with available credit, now provide total liquidity of $119.9 million. PREIT said it had extended the maturity date of its credit facilities to Dec. 10, "and is pursuing all available alternatives to address this upcoming maturity."

PREIT said it recently extended the mortgages on Cherry Hill Mall in the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Woodland Mall in Kentwood, Michigan, and on the earnings call Coradino was asked if the company could negotiate new mortgages for those properties instead of extensions.

“We’re in regular dialog with our lenders and have retained an international brokerage firm to solicit financing proposals," the CEO said. "However, the financing market does remain challenged.”

In a November securities filing, PREIT said it had won extensions for $300 million in debt due on Cherry Hill Mall. Life insurers New York Life Insurance Co. and the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America had each provided PREIT $150 million in loans, backed by the 1.3 million-square-foot property.

The new due date was in February of this year, extended past the prior due date of November. The November deadline was already an extension of the original due date in September. And the new agreement gives PREIT the option to extend one more time until this May, according to the filing.

On the earnings call, PREIT Chief Financial Officer Mario Ventresca said the company remains "compliant with all our debt covenants" but didn't offer any other details.

PREIT didn't immediately respond to an email asking if the REIT made the February mortgage payment or sought another extension.

On its earnings call, the retail landlord said mall occupancy is doing well, as is its leasing pipeline.

“Leasing volume remains strong, demonstrated by continued growth relative to 2019,” Ventresca said.

PREIT has been aggressively adding new tenant types to its mall rosters, including residential, healthcare, entertainment and hospitality firms.

The landlord was “among the first to introduce these diverse uses and proactively take back under-performing anchor spaces to better use them, replacing 19 department stores with over 40 different uses,” Coradino said.

Construction is underway at Moorestown Mall in Moorestown, New Jersey, for a Cooper University Healthcare facility and the 375-unit Pearl apartment development, following completion of the sale of land in the second quarter of 2022, according to PREIT.

In addition, tenant construction has started for a new prototype 32,000-square-foot Lego Discovery Center at Springfield Town Center in Springfield, Virginia, with an expected opening in the third quarter.