Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Gaming and Leisure Properties Incorporated, third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Joe Jaffone, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Maria, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Gaming and Leisure Properties' third quarter 2020 earnings call in webcast. The press release distributed yesterday afternoon is available in the investor relations section on our website at www.glpropinc.com. On today's call, management prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Libigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. Forward-looking statements may include those related to revenue, operating income, and financial guidance, as well as non-GAAP financial measures such as FFO and AFFO. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates, and the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future. We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussions related to risk factors and forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC, including its third quarter 10Q and the earnings release, as well as definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures contained in the company's earnings release. On this morning's call, we are joined by Peter Carlino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Desiree Burke, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, Brandon Moore, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, Steve Ladney, Senior Vice President of Finance, and Matthew Demchek, Senior VP of Investments. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Peter Carlino. Peter, please go ahead.

Thank you, Joe, and good morning to all of you who have dialed in today. Obviously, we're quite pleased to report a very, very strong quarter and to highlight just a lot of positive activity that has occurred across several fronts that we will outline today. I will call your attention to our press release, which I'd like to think is one of the most thorough and complete in the marketplace. Our team works very hard to give you as much information as possible to make judgments about the health of your company. This quarter is no exception. There's a lot, a lot of detail. Frankly, if everybody read it thoroughly, we could probably skip this call but for Q&A. Nonetheless, we will highlight some of the strong things that have happened this quarter. Looking back just a little bit, the year got off to a pretty good start, January, February, March. And then, of course, COVID hit, which was not a pleasant event. You will recall that we moved pretty quickly to work with Penn National to improve its liquidity. which has been, if I must say so, a stunning success for them and, by extension, for us as well. You might recall we drew down our revolver at the beginning of the pandemic in an abundance of caution and used it to pay down some debt. The Penn National Transaction, as I highlighted, was in exchange for a property. We made the judgment that having them owe us was not a very forward-thinking idea, put a burden on the company that we thought they didn't need. On the other hand, forgiveness was not acceptable to us, so kind of a rent exchange for property made a lot of sense to us, and we're along with a lot of discussion about disposing of that property and looking ahead. At the same time, we agreed to a purchase option for our Hollywood Casino in Perryville, and the real estate, of course, would remain with GLPI. Penn executed also a five-year lease renewal option under its two master leases, and We also reopened the TRS properties, Baton Rouge and Prairieville. By the way, I'll make a comment that it has been shocking, maybe surprising, to see the strength with which these properties, not just ours but others, have opened around the country. It's really quite stunning. A statistic that stands out in my mind is looking at Ohio performance at Penn's properties and Ohio itself hitting an all-time record in the month of September, which is really pretty stunning. That has certainly done well for the properties that we own in that state. GLPI also received the approval in Louisiana from the Gaming Commission to move its Riverboat, landside, and we are well along with plans to move landside in a very attractive but modestly priced facility that I think is going to dramatically improve the performance of that property. Also, after much struggle and effort, we finally acquired Lumiere Place in St. Louis. And now, rather than alone, we actually own the property and lease it. and the same applies to Belltower Park in Ohio with Boyd Gamey. We also, as you well know, completed a couple of financing transactions. I'm not going to go through them now, but others will walk through those with and for you. Last night you saw the agreement we entered into with the exchange agreement with Caesars. And as you know, they had to divest some property in Missouri. And one of those properties, oh, in Indiana, forgive me. I'm still back at Lumiere Place. In Indiana. And one of those properties was Evansville. And in exchange, we picked up two properties in Iowa. But Hayden, to part with Evansville, it was a first-rate place, just an outstanding property. They opened it up to bidding, and we were successful in buying that property back, which is another independent transaction, which is first rate, which gave us an opportunity to bring another operator into our portfolio with Twin River, which is also exciting. And with that, we picked up the opportunity to buy Dover Downs in Delaware. Okay. A lot happening here at GLPI that I think put us on track for a really tremendous year. And a lot of this has come together just recently, but it's been a lot of hard work through this year, and I commend our team for making these things possible. So with that, I am going to turn the microphone over to Desiree Burke, who will walk through some numbers with you, and then we're going to go around the table and continue. Go ahead, Desiree.