CareTrust REIT, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Care Trust REIT second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Lauren Beal, SVP and Controller. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to Care Trust REIT's second quarter 2021 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 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 reason. 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. Yesterday, CareTrust filed its Form 10-Q, an 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. 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 Investments. I'll now turn the call over to Greg Stapley, CareTrust REIT's Chairman and CEO. Greg?

Thanks, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. In U2, we continue to methodically execute on our long-term business plan in spite of the near-term challenges posed by the pandemic. We acquired some great facilities, refinanced some higher-cost debt, raised a little equity, saw our SNF census start to rebound, collected all of our contract rent, and continued to refill our pipelines. But before we go into all of that, we note that as the current wave of Delta variant infections raises the possibility of more limitations on the activities of daily living, the skilled nursing and seniors housing industries continue to battle back from the downdraft incentives that bottomed in the first quarter of this year. Not surprisingly, skilled nursing and seniors housing facilities, which were a favorite target of the finger pointers in the early days of the pandemic, have today become some of the safest and healthiest places for vulnerable seniors and post-acute patients to be. We're proud to be associated with the people who provide these services and we continue to base our business strategy on a commitment to move as many facilities as we can into the strongest operating hands possible. While our providers have risen to the challenge of protecting residents, patients, and staff from this highly infectious disease, they're still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic, most notably Depressed census, increased labor costs, and a shortage of qualified workers. Our robust disclosure around lease coverage, which we began last fall, has clearly demonstrated the importance of provider relief funds for the skilled nursing industry. Our skilled nursing providers have fared well as the government has provided significant funding and other measures designed to fill the gaps created by decreased occupancy revenue and increased operating costs. We're hopeful that the industry will soon receive some or all of the remaining provider relief funds, which many operators still need. Our quarterly lease coverage disclosures have also highlighted the looming dangers of failing to provide direct financial support to seniors' housing. Census for AL providers is unlikely to recover as quickly as it will for skilled nursing. These providers, especially those serving mid-market and lower-income clienteles, provide a highly valuable and essential service to society, and there are good reasons for payors to want to keep those residents healthy and in place for as long as possible. We join with many voices who are calling on government to acknowledge the critical role that assisted living providers play in the health care continuum with direct relief funding. That said, we're very pleased with where we are today. This quarter, we posted double-digit normalized FFO per share growth of 10.2% over the same quarter last year and increased our dividend by 6% at the same time. We collected 100% of contract rents in Q2 and 96.2% thus far for July, and we believe that we can yet collect 100% of rents due this year. We grew the portfolio with $42.3 million in new investments since the last quarter, bringing our total capital deployment for the year to almost $185 million so far. We reduced our borrowing costs with the $400 million seven-year bond issue we completed in June at a 3-7-8 coupon to refinance our previous 5.25% bonds. This fixed and reduced that chunk of our long-term interest expense and pushed those maturities out to 2028. We held steady on leverage. with net debt to EBITDA up 3.7 times and debt to EV of 22.1% at quarter end. We used our ATM to sell 288,000 shares in the quarter at an average of over $24 per share. And with all of that, we increased our FFO and FAD guidance yesterday, reflecting our constructive view of our own future and the future of the post-acute care and seniors' housing industries, notwithstanding the near-term headwinds we are all facing. Other than that, it's a pretty boring quarter. And so to wrap up, despite the short-term challenges, with great operator relationships, plenty of liquidity, and a great team here, CareTrust remains well-positioned to continue pursuing our mission of pairing great operators with meaningful opportunities to transform individual facilities and, by extension, the industry as a whole for the better. With that, I'll turn it over to Dave to discuss the industry in our portfolio. Then Mark will jump in with recent acquisitions in the pipeline, and Bill will finish off with the financials. Then we'll open up for Q&A. Dave?