Americold Realty Trust, Inc.

Hello and welcome everyone joining today's AmeriCold Realty Trust first quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. To register to ask a question at any time, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad. Please note this call is being recorded. We are standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Rich Leland. Please go ahead.

Hello, and thank you for joining us today for AmeriCold Realty Trust's first quarter of 2026 earnings conference call. In addition to the press release distributed this morning, we have filed a supplemental financial package with additional detail on our results. These materials are available on the investor relations section of our website at www.americold.com. This morning's conference call is hosted by AmeriCold's Chief Executive Officer, Rob Chambers, along with Chris Papa, our Chief Financial Officer. Management will make some prepared comments, after which we'll open up the call to your questions. Before we begin, let me remind you that management's remarks today may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, assumptions and beliefs, as well as information available to us at this time, and speak only as to the date they are made. The management takes no obligation to update publicly any of these statements in light of new information or future events. During this call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including NOI, Core EBITDA, Net Debt to Pro Forma Core EBITDA, and AFFO, among others. The full definition of these non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the comparable GAAP financial measures are contained in the supplemental financial package available on the company's website. Please note that all warehouse financial results are in constant currency and reflect the Q1 2026 same-store pool, unless otherwise noted. Now, I'll turn the call over to Rob for his prepared remarks.

Thank you, Rich. And thank you all for joining our first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I would like to formally welcome Chris Papa to the team as our chief financial officer. Chris started with us in February and brings more than two decades of experience leading investment grade rated and publicly traded REITs. Since joining the team, Chris has been fully engaged, meeting with leaders across the business, spending time with our investors and our customers, and touring our facilities. He brings a unique mix of qualifications and experiences, and I look forward to his many future contributions to drive our business forward. Turning to our first quarter financial results, we delivered AFFO of 29 cents per share above analyst consensus. Chris will review the full details in just a few minutes, but I was pleased that all key metrics materialized in line are slightly better than our original guidance. I'm particularly encouraged that our physical occupancy was flat year over year, further supporting our belief that inventory levels have largely stabilized. These trends have continued in April, and we believe that we should see a return to more normalized seasonal trends as we progress throughout the year. Our pricing metrics in the quarter also marginally overperformed expectations. Our commercial teams continue to lead with our value propositions. which we call the AmeriCold Advantage, consisting of best-in-class service, technology solutions, and a suite of services, rather than simply competing on price, as you see from others in our industry. Our customer churn rate remains low at 2.5%, further validating our view that service remains a top priority to our customers when considering their cold chain partner. During the quarter, we also successfully renewed 34% of the year's fixed committed contracts that were either month to month or set to expire in 2026. This represents approximately $100 million of revenue and extends the weighted average duration of our future expirations. Importantly, we held our total rent and storage revenue from fixed committed contracts at 59%, very solid performance during a critical renewal period as customers continue to see the benefits of the fixed commitment structure. All of these metrics demonstrate our company-wide focus on commercial excellence as we navigate through the current market environment. Since stepping into the CEO role, I've been laser focused on setting a strong foundation for future growth while ensuring that we deliver on our financial commitments. Despite a continued challenging macro environment, we've now delivered three straight quarters that either met or exceeded AFFO per share consensus. Beyond our financial performance, We also made significant progress this quarter on each of our five key strategic priorities. As a reminder, we launched these objectives late last year to strengthen the foundation of our organization and set us up for long-term success. They include de-levering our balance sheet to maintain our investment grade profile, actively managing our portfolio of real estate assets for maximum value, streamlining our operations and right-sizing our cost structure, identifying unique opportunities to drive occupancy growth across our network, and selectively supporting our key customers and strategic partnerships. Perhaps the most foundational of these priorities are the strategic actions that we are taking to strengthen our balance sheet. Earlier this morning, we announced the formation of a new joint venture with EQT Partners, one of the largest purpose-driven real estate investors in the world. EQT is a sophisticated investor in the space as they own one of the largest cold storage providers in Europe. They will hold a 70% interest in the JV as part of their infrastructure portfolio, with AmeriCold contributing a seed pool of 12 properties across the U.S. worth over $1.3 billion. This represents a blended cap rate to the JV of approximately 7% for nearly $3,300 per pallet position. This is a significant premium to our public market valuation, which reflects the mission-critical nature of our assets. As part of the agreement, we will continue to operate the assets, providing continuity of service to our customers, as well as providing ongoing asset management and development expertise to the JV. We anticipate closing the transaction in the third quarter, at which point AmeriCold will receive approximately $1.1 billion in proceeds, which we intend to use to pay down a portion of our outstanding debt. As many of you are aware, joint ventures are a common structure across the REIT industry, and I'm thrilled to have EQT as a partner to help support our strategy. We expect to expand the platform in the future with additional development opportunities, and we already have one exciting new project for consideration, which I will discuss in just a moment. As we look forward, our capital allocation priorities remain consistent. maintaining an investment grade balance sheet, evaluating the portfolio for asset recycling opportunities, and continuing our disciplined approach to new capital deployment. Our second priority is to actively manage our portfolio to address underperforming properties while pursuing the highest and best use of our geographically diverse network of real estate assets. During our fourth quarter call, we indicated that we had identified nine additional facilities to exit or idle in 2026. Two of these exits were completed in Q1. Both of these facilities were leased and we returned the keys to the owner at the end of the term after successfully shifting much of the customer inventory into our nearby facilities. These buildings will be torn down, removing over 62,000 pallet positions from the Atlanta market. Of the remaining facilities, the majority have been idled and are actively being marketed for sale. While we continue to do our part to remove excess capacity from the industry, we continue to see smaller, less sophisticated operators remain under pressure. In the quarter, we've heard of several smaller operators and new market entrants either shutting their doors or struggling to meet their financial commitments. In many of those instances, we've been the beneficiary of volumes coming back to AmeriCold given our status as an industry leader. Beyond just exiting facilities, we are also pursuing attractive triple net leasing opportunities across the portfolio. During Q1, we identified one of these opportunities and purchased an existing leased facility at well below market value and subsequently entered into a 15-year triple net lease with a new tenant to fully occupy the space. By eliminating the rent expense and acquiring the property at a discount, we are able to achieve an approximate 10% return on investment. We also signed several other new deals in the quarter and have increased our annualized leasing revenue by over $4 million, or about 7%, which you can see reflected on page 24 of the financial supplement. These are all great examples of the disciplined process we are taking to creatively ensure we are receiving the best value possible from our real estate assets. Our third priority is to right-size our cost structure and drive efficiencies across our operations. Late last year, we identified $30 million in potential savings within indirect labor and SG&A, and I'm pleased to report that all initiatives were completed in Q1 as expected. We're exploring additional cost actions, and Chris will discuss the details in a moment. While we are taking cost out of the business, we are being extremely cautious to ensure that we retain the high level of customer service that AmeriCold is known for in the industry. This quarter, I'm pleased to announce that our Fort Worth Railhead site received the Warehouse of the Year Award from Kraft Heinz. This award was measured by performance KPIs like turn times, inventory accuracy, fill rates, and others. It is a great example of our relentless pursuit of efficiency and high-quality service, resulting in meaningful value to our customers. Congratulations to our team in Fort Worth. Our fourth priority is driving organic growth by leveraging our operational expertise, scale, and mission-critical infrastructure in adjacent and under-penetrated sectors. Late last year, we announced our initial win with On The Run in South Australia, one of the nation's most well-known convenience and petrol providers. And in February, we announced the expansion of our relationship to support their national network in Australia. As a reminder, we are providing tri-temperature warehousing services to replenish every product in the store and have expanded our coverage to 600 of their locations. Additionally, I am very pleased that we recently renewed our contract with KFC in Australia for an additional 10 years. Americal has been working with KFC stores for the last 30 years, and we will continue to support their restaurant network of approximately 500 stores on the east coast of Australia for the next decade, providing tri-temperature warehousing and distributing all of their food and non-food materials. Additionally, as part of this extension, we're implementing a technology solution that will generate restaurant-level sales forecasts, recommend replenishment orders, and proactively optimize inventory positioning across the network. This technology will serve as the backbone of our store support solutions and is a great example of AmeriCorps' differentiated offering and the value we can provide to our QSR multi-unit customers. In North America, we successfully closed on a handful of new pet food and floral deals this quarter, expanding our presence in non-food categories. Additionally, our initial outreach into the pharmaceutical space resulted in a new storage commitment for probiotic products. While these floral, pet food, and pharma deals will not be material to our results this year, they remain a great example of our ability to capture business in multiple new markets while the food industry remains under pressure. One area that we're particularly excited about is our e-commerce business, which has been growing at a double-digit rate. We're currently onboarding three new accounts and shipped over a million packages last year. We've expanded our capabilities to five sites across the country and have the ability to cover 99.5% of the U.S. population in two days or less. Similar to our retail and QSR customers, e-commerce is operationally intensive, which gives us an advantage in pursuing new business given our experience in the area and the strength of the AmeriCold operating system. On to our fifth priority. From a development perspective, our expansions in Sydney, Australia and Christchurch, New Zealand were both delivered on time and on budget during the quarter. Both expansions are dedicated to large grocery retailers and add critical capacity to both markets where our existing facilities are nearly full. These facilities are great examples of the opportunity to strategically invest in markets that have not seen the level of speculative activity that has occurred in the US. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, one of the important benefits of our new partnership with EQT is the ability to pursue new development opportunities through the joint venture. While we have significantly narrowed our development pipeline and refined our internal requirements for capital allocation, there are certain customer-driven projects where it makes sense to support our key relationships. A great example of this is a new customer-dedicated project that we're kicking off with McCain Foods in Plover, Wisconsin. McCain is a top five customer for AmeriCold with a nearly 35-year relationship. We have an existing plant advantage facility that is located adjacent to their manufacturing plant in Plover. They want to consolidate portions of their cold storage network with an additional 56,000 pallet positions at the site. The project is backed by a 20-year fixed commitment agreement from McCain. And given the attractive profile of the project, we believe that this is the type of project that could fit well in the joint venture. This is truly a win-win transaction for all the parties involved, and we're honored that McCain chose us for this opportunity, and we look forward to servicing them for many more years to come. This win also highlights the importance of having a diverse network at every node in the supply chain. As customers evaluate their future networks, we continue to see large food manufacturers looking to consolidate significant piles of inventory back closer to production. This is an area where AmeriCold is a clear industry leader, and we're positioned to take advantage of this trend, given our long-standing relationships and solutioning expertise. I am proud of our progress in each of our five key strategic priorities this quarter, with a joint venture representing a meaningful step towards our long-term leverage goal. As we continue to relentlessly pursue cost savings, portfolio management, and see our developments continue to come online, we're confident that our current playbook will build a strong foundation for future success. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris to provide some additional details on our performance in the quarter, as well as some of the anticipated impacts to our financial statements for the new joint venture. Chris?