National Retail Properties (NNN) Risk Factors

There may be known or unknown environmental liabilities associated with Properties owned or acquired in the future by NNN. Certain particular uses of some Properties may also have a heightened risk of environmental liability because of the hazardous materials used in performing services on those Properties, such as convenience stores with underground petroleum storage tanks or auto parts and auto service businesses using petroleum products, paint and machine solvents. Some of the Properties may contain asbestos or asbestos-containing materials, or may contain or may develop mold or other bio-contaminants. Asbestos-containing materials must be handled, managed and removed in accordance with applicable governmental laws, rules and regulations. Mold and other bio-contaminants can produce airborne toxins, may cause a variety of health issues in individuals and must be remediated in accordance with applicable governmental laws, rules and regulations. As part of its due diligence process, NNN generally obtains an environmental site assessment for each property it acquires. In cases where NNN intends to acquire real estate where evidence of some level of known contamination may exist, NNN generally requires the seller or tenant to (i) remediate the contamination in accordance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, (ii) indemnify NNN for environmental liabilities, and/or (iii) agree to other arrangements deemed appropriate by NNN, including, under certain circumstances, the purchase of environmental insurance. Although sellers or tenants may be contractually responsible for remediating hazardous materials on a property and may be responsible for indemnifying NNN for any liability resulting from the use of a Property and for any failure to comply with any applicable environmental laws, rules or regulations, NNN has no assurance that sellers, tenants or any other responsible party shall be able to meet their remediation and indemnity obligations to NNN. A tenant, seller or any other responsible party may not have the financial ability to meet its remediation and indemnity obligations to NNN when required. Furthermore, NNN may have strict liability to governmental agencies or third parties as a result of the existence of hazardous materials on Properties, whether or not NNN knew about or caused such hazardous materials to exist. As of January 31, 2024, NNN had 68 Properties currently under some level of environmental remediation and/or monitoring. In general, the responsible party (which may include the seller, a previous owner, the tenant or an adjacent or former land owner) is liable for the cost of the environmental remediation for each of these Properties. If NNN is responsible for hazardous materials located on its Properties, NNN's liability may include investigation and remediation costs, property damage to third parties, personal injury to third parties, and governmental fines and penalties. Furthermore, the presence of hazardous materials on a Property may adversely impact the Property value or NNN's ability to sell the Property. Significant environmental liability could impact NNN's results of operations, ability to make distributions to stockholders, and its ability to meet its debt obligations. In order to mitigate exposure to environmental liability, NNN maintains an environmental insurance policy which provides environmental insurance coverage for substantially all of its Properties. However, the policy is subject to exclusions and limitations and does not cover all of the Properties owned by NNN. For those Properties covered under the policy, insurance may not fully compensate NNN for any environmental liability. NNN has no assurance that the insurer on its environmental insurance policy will be able to meet its obligations under the policy. NNN may not desire to renew the environmental insurance policy in place upon expiration or a replacement policy may not be available at a reasonable cost, if at all.

NNN is dependent on the efforts of its key management. As of January 31, 2024, the executive team, department heads and senior managers average over 19 years of experience with NNN. Competition for senior management personnel can be intense and NNN may not be able to retain its key management. Although NNN believes qualified replacements could be found for any departures of key management, the loss of their services could adversely affect NNN's performance and the value of its securities.

Financial and economic conditions can be challenging and volatile and any worsening of such conditions, including any disruption in the capital markets, or an inflationary economic environment, both real or anticipated, could adversely affect NNN's business and results of operations. Such conditions could also affect the financial condition of NNN's tenants, developers, borrowers, lenders or the institutions that hold NNN's cash balances and short-term investments, which may expose NNN to increased risks of default by these parties. There can be no assurance that actions of the United States Government, the Federal Reserve or other government and regulatory bodies attempting to stabilize the economy or financial markets will achieve their intended effect. Additionally, some of these actions may adversely affect financial institutions, capital providers, retailers, consumers, NNN's financial condition, NNN's results of operations or the trading price of NNN's shares. Potential consequences of challenging and volatile financial and economic conditions include: - the financial condition of NNN's tenants may be adversely affected, which may result in tenant defaults under the leases due to bankruptcy, lack of liquidity, operational failures or for other reasons,- the ability to raise equity capital or borrow on terms and conditions that NNN finds acceptable may be limited or unavailable, which could reduce NNN's ability to pursue acquisition and development opportunities and refinance existing debt, reduce NNN's returns from acquisition and development activities, reduce NNN's ability to make cash distributions to its stockholders and increase NNN's future interest expense,- the recognition of impairment charges on or reduced values of the Properties or tenant receivables, may adversely affect NNN's results of operations,- reduced values of the Properties may limit NNN's ability to dispose of assets at attractive prices and reduce the availability of buyer financing, and - the value and liquidity of NNN's short-term investments and cash deposits could be reduced as a result of (i) a deterioration of the financial condition of the institutions that hold NNN's cash deposits or the institutions or assets in which NNN has made short-term investments, (ii) the dislocation of the markets for NNN's short-term investments, (iii) increased volatility in market rates for such investments or (iv) other factors.

If NNN expands its operating strategy to include investment in international markets, NNN could face additional risks, including foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, operational risks due to local economic and political conditions and laws and policies of the United States affecting foreign investment.

NNN uses information technology and other computer resources to carry out important operational activities and to maintain its business records. This includes the use of third-party software, technologies, tools and a broad array of services and functions. As part of NNN's normal business activities, NNN (i) maintains operational and financial information related to NNN's business, (ii) collects, processes, stores and transmits certain personal identifying and confidential information relating to its tenants, associates and vendors, within NNN's systems and utilizing those of third-party providers, and (iii) allows associates to perform some or all of their business activities remotely. NNN faces risks associated with security breaches through cyber-attacks or cyber-intrusions, malware, computer viruses and malicious codes, ransomware, attachments to e-mail, unauthorized access attempts, denial of service attacks, phishing, social engineering, persons with access to systems inside NNN's organization, and other significant disruptions of NNN's information technology networks and related systems. The risk of a security breach has generally increased as the frequency, intensity and sophistication of attempted attacks and intrusions from around the world have increased. Even the most well protected information, networks, systems and facilities remain potentially vulnerable because the techniques, tools and tactics used in such attempted security breaches evolve and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, and in some cases are designed to not be detected and, in fact, may not be detected. Accordingly, NNN may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate security barriers, disaster recovery or other preventative or corrective measures, and thus it is impossible for NNN to entirely counteract this risk or fully mitigate the harms after such an attack. NNN has implemented systems and processes intended to address ongoing and evolving cybersecurity risks, secure its information technology, applications and computer systems, and prevent unauthorized access to or loss of sensitive, confidential and personal data. Although NNN and its service providers employ what NNN believes are adequate security, disaster recovery and other preventative and corrective measures, NNN's security measures, taken as a whole, may not be sufficient for all possible situations and may be vulnerable to, among other things, fraud, hacking, associate error, system error, vendors' use of generative artificial intelligence technologies, and faulty password management. NNN's ability to conduct its business may be impaired if its information technology networks, systems or resources, including its websites or e-mail systems, are compromised, degraded, damaged or fail, whether due to a virus or other harmful circumstance, fraud, intentional penetration or disruption of its information technology resources by: - a third party,- natural disaster,- a failure of hardware or software due to a design or programmatic flaw,- a failure of hardware or software security controls,- telecommunications system failure,- service provider error or failure,- fraudulent transactions,- intentional or unintentional personnel actions,- lost connectivity to NNN's networked resources, or - a failure of disaster recovery system. A significant and extended disruption or other material cyber incident could damage NNN's business or reputation and cause: - loss of revenues or tenant relationships,- unintended and/or unauthorized public disclosure or the misappropriation of proprietary, personal identifying and confidential information, and - NNN to incur significant expenses to address and remediate or otherwise resolve these kinds of issues. The release of confidential information may also lead to litigation or other proceedings against NNN by affected individuals, business partners and/or regulators, and the outcome of such proceedings, which could include losses, penalties, fines, injunctions, expenses and charges recorded against NNN's earnings and cause NNN reputational harm, could have a material and adverse effect on NNN's business, financial position or results of operations. In addition, the costs of maintaining adequate protection against data security threats, based on considerations of their evolution, increasing sophistication, pervasiveness and frequency and/or government-mandated standards or obligations regarding protective efforts, could be material to NNN's financial position, results of operations, cash flows, and the market price of NNN's common stock in a particular period or over various periods.

NNN's business depends upon cloud computing services provided by third-parties to provide a distributed computing infrastructure platform for certain NNN business operations, including data processing, storage capabilities, communications, disaster recovery and other services. Such third-party cloud computing services are vulnerable to damage or interruption from infrastructure changes, natural disasters, cybersecurity attacks, power outages, terrorist attacks and other events or acts. NNN expects that in the future it will experience interruptions, delays and outages in service and availability from its third-party cloud computing providers from time to time due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, infrastructure changes, human or software errors, website hosting disruptions and capacity constraints. Because NNN cannot easily switch its cloud computing operations to other third-party providers without significant costs, any disruption of or interference with its use of third-party cloud computing service providers could have a materially negative impact on NNN's business and results of operations.

NNN may not complete suitable property acquisitions or developments on advantageous terms, if at all, due to competition for such properties with others engaged in real estate investment activities or a lack of properties for sale on terms deemed acceptable to NNN. NNN's inability to successfully acquire or develop new properties may affect NNN's ability to achieve anticipated return on investment or realize its investment strategy, which could have an adverse effect on its results of operations.