CareTrust REIT, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the CARE Trust REIT fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question at bedtime, please press star then 1 on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce our host, Mr. Warren Beal, Senior Vice President of Accounting and Controller of CARE Trust REIT. May I meet you again?

Thank you, and welcome to Care Trust REIT's fourth quarter and year-end 2020 earnings call. Participants should be aware that this call is being recorded, and listeners are advised that any forward-looking statements made on today's call are based on management's current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs about Care Trust's business and the environment in which it operates. These statements may include projections regarding future financial performance, dividends, acquisitions, investments, returns, financings, and other matters and may or may not reference other matters affecting the company's business or the businesses of its tenants, including factors that are beyond their control, such as natural disasters, pandemics, such as COVID-19, and governmental actions. The company's statements today and its business generally are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied herein. Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review Care Trust SEC filings for a more complete discussion of factors that could impact results, as well as any financial or other statistical information required by SEC Regulation G. Except as required by law, Care Trust REIT and its affiliates do not undertake to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements where changes arise as a result of new information, future events, changing circumstances, or for any other reasons. During the call, the company will reference non-GAAP metrics such as EBITDA, FFO, and FAD, or FAD, and normalize EBITDA, FFO, and FAD. When viewed together with GAAP results, the company believes these measures can provide a more complete understanding of its business, but cautions that they should not be relied upon to the exclusion of GAAP reports. Care Trust yesterday filed its Form 10-K in accompanying press release and its quarterly financial supplements. each of which can be accessed on the investor relations section of CareTrust's website at www.caretrustreit.com. A replay of this call will also be available on the website for a limited period. With me on the call this morning are Bill Wagner, Chief Financial Officer, Dave Sedgwick, President and Chief Operating Officer, Mark Lamb, Chief Investment Officer, and Eric Gillis, Vice President of Portfolio Management and Investment. I will now turn the call over to Greg Stapley, CareTrust REIT's Chairman and CEO.

Thanks, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. 2020 turned out to be a very busy year for Care Trust. One might think that with M&A and our asset classes virtually shut down for most of the year, a health care REIT like ours might have had little to do. But thanks to our conservative balance sheet, our top flight operators, and especially the outstanding team that I'm privileged to work with here, capital never dried up, and the few deals that were out there did cross our desks. Anticipating some potential dislocation in the markets as we recover from the pandemic, the team worked harder than ever to find smart ways to deploy the extensive dry powder we've carefully accumulated over the years. In their efforts, we're rewarded with $105 million in new assets to help our stock price and related cost of capital recover quickly. To be sure, $105 million is a light year for Care Trust, but we're thrilled to be reporting that we actually grew both assets and shareholder value in the face of unprecedented headwinds this last year. When the pandemic broke, we firmly believed that our outstanding operators would find a way to navigate through the challenge. This gave us the confidence to maintain both our dividend and guidance. That confidence proved well-placed as Care Trust collected 99.3% of contract rents in 2020 and experienced no rent leakage in connection with the one operator change we made during the year. These results and the ongoing performance by our tenants under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable have proven once again the value of our operator-first investment discipline. Saying that, I don't want to downplay the importance of government measures, especially those aimed at helping the skilled nursing industry to weather the COVID storm. CARES Act funds for those who needed them and the waiver of the three-day qualifying stay have both been huge. To help you see that as clearly as possible, we've once again provided enhanced disclosure around the relief funds in this quarter's supplemental. We hope that the government will see the obvious value in continuing the way for beyond 2021, and that any additional relief funding will be sufficient to help those who need it to achieve the soft landing our healthcare heroes and their employers deserve. So in spite of everything that's going on, Care Trust remains well positioned to continue expanding, reducing our cost of capital, and solidifying our spot as a leader in the market. For example, on the credit front, in case you didn't see it this morning, Fitch published a BB Plus rating on Care Trust today, one notch below investment grade, with a stable outlook. After lengthy conversations with them, we feel confident that they understand our business fairly well, including some of the key things that make us different and better. This marks another important step in Care Trust's ongoing evolution and growth. Finally, speaking of evolution and growth, maybe the most exciting thing to happen this year, we've made some significant personnel moves that we believe will set us up to take Care Trust to the next level and beyond. First, congratulations go out to Dave, who was named President and Chief Operating Officer by our board this week. Most of you know Dave well, and you won't be a bit surprised by that move. In his expanded role, Dave will be taking even greater responsibility for leading our investing, financing, asset management, portfolio management, and investor relations efforts. This will free me up to spend more time on strategy and relationships and will further strengthen an already solid team. Second, a long overdue congratulations goes out to Lauren Beal, who was promoted to Senior Vice President and Controller this week. Lauren has been with us almost since the beginning and has pulled the laboring war on everything from setting up our accounting systems to designing and implementing our internal controls over financial reporting to handling audit and overseeing SEC reporting and more. She's been a huge contributor and we couldn't be happier to have her on the team. Finally, we feel like we scored a major coup in persuading James Collister, one of the best known and most well-respected attorneys in the healthcare REIT world, to join us as General Counsel and Secretary. James has been with us as outside counselor from the beginning, and bringing him in-house will allow us to involve him in his deep expertise at higher levels in the day-to-day workings and growth of the company. We're grateful to have him. As is the case with our operator-first investment philosophy, for the team here, it's all about the people, and it is a real privilege for me to work alongside so many amazing and talented professionals who all share the same goals. to make Care Trust the healthcare read of choice for operators, capital suppliers, and investors. So with that, I'll turn it over to Dave for some more color on what's happening out there. Mark will jump in with the pipeline, and Bill will finish off the financials. Then we'll open it up for Q&A.