Capex Holds Steady as Credit Costs Shape Corporate Plans
Across a 37-company slice of this week's disclosures spanning 13 industries, capital spending and the cost of credit emerged as the two most common threads, each running through 17 companies in 11 industries.
Coverage: 17 of 37 companies in this theme (FRHC, BGS, RMR, TMHC, OPTU, CUBE, ILPT, MAA, MAC, UVV, SAIC, FE, CIVB, TFX, WELL, RPAY, HDRN) — a sample, not the full set.
Two themes tied for the top of the board this week across a 37-company, 13-industry read of domestic disclosures: capital spending and the cost of credit, each showing up at 17 companies spread across 11 industries. The overlap is the story. Companies are not choosing between building and borrowing carefully — many are doing both at once, and saying so in the same breath.
Real estate carried the heaviest capex load, with seven companies in the cohort. CubeSmart (CUBE) framed its year around what it called targeted investments built for growth. Industrial Logistics Properties Trust (ILPT) tied its expansion and renovation program directly to the performance of an interest rate cap held with a counterparty, linking the building plan to the financing that backs it. Mid America Apartment Communities (MAA) quantified the payoff on repositioned units, citing a 14% cash-on-cash return and roughly $110 in per-unit rent gain over market, with six more project starts penciled in for the second half of 2026, while separately warning that occupancy and rental revenue remain exposed to adverse economic conditions. Macerich (MAC) itemized capital spend across major development, redevelopment and leasing costs, including $25 million tied to its Crabtree Mall project, and in the same breath named tariffs, elevated interest rates and inflation as the conditions that could move those numbers. Welltower (WELL) grouped economic downturns with elevated inflation and interest rates as a single bundle of risk to watch.
The capex commitments extend well beyond property. FirstEnergy (FE) put a hard number on its ambitions, laying out a $36 billion five-year investment plan alongside a regulatory filing with hearings scheduled for mid-July. Optimum Communications (OPTU) reported roughly $1.3 billion in cash capital expenditures for the year, matched against 177,000 new passings added and broadband revenue per user up 1.6% year over year. Taylor Morrison Home (TMHC) described its homebuilding investment cycle as multi-year by nature, casting its tie-up with Berkshire Hathaway as suited to that horizon. Freedom Holding (FRHC) said its expansion will require significant capital expenditures of a size not yet determined — and in the same disclosure flagged that rising interest rates could hurt it if it holds rate-sensitive securities or has to raise its own deposit rates to compete, one company living inside both dominant themes at once.
On the credit side, the moves were just as concrete. Universal Corporation (UVV) signed a new bank credit agreement in December, replacing its prior facility, while noting its own maintenance capex needs are modest, typically under $30 million a year — a company managing its balance sheet even as its physical investment stays small. Teleflex Incorporated (TFX) went further, fully repaying borrowings under its prior credit agreement, including its Term Loan A and a delayed-draw term loan, as part of a broader financing overhaul. Civista Bancshares (CIVB) described a revenue mix built roughly 80% on net interest income and 20% on fee income, with its equipment leasing unit earning spread and gain-on-sale income directly off financing activity. B&G Foods (BGS) named its access to credit markets and its borrowing costs as dependent on conditions in credit markets generally, the same company that separately reports EBITDA less capex as one of its standard measures.
RMR Group (RMR) showed how the two themes can collide inside one company. On the investment side, it pointed to limited partners' need for returns and interest rate stabilization as demand drivers for its platform; on the credit side, it flagged that OPI's Chapter 11 restructuring could reduce the management fees RMR collects over time — a reminder that credit stress at a client can travel straight into a manager's own revenue line. Repay Holdings (RPAY) reported combined leverage adjusted for merger-related synergies and financing, Science Applications International (SAIC) noted net cash used in financing activities, and GigCapital7 (HDRN) detailed a preferred-stock structure priced at a discount to a standard financing round — smaller signals, but they land on the same axis as the rest of the cohort.
What ties the week together is not any single number but the pairing: the same 17-company, 11-industry footprint shows up whether the topic is what companies are building or what they're paying to build it. Boards across real estate, industrials, utilities, communications and financial services are choosing to keep spending. They're just doing it with one eye fixed on the cost of the money that makes the spending possible.