CareTrust REIT, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CareTrust Free 3rd Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. I would like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Lauren Bill, CareTrust Senior Vice President and Controller. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome to care trust REITs third 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, financing, 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 to your end. Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review CareTrust SEC filings for 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, CareTrust 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. Earlier this morning, Care Trust filed its Form 10-Q, an accompanying press release, and its quarterly financial supplement, each of which can be accessed on the investor relations section of Care Trust'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 Dave Sedgwick, President and Chief Operating Officer, Bill Wagner, Chief Financial Officer, Mark Lamb, Chief Investment Officer, and Eric Gillis, Senior Vice President of Portfolio Management and Investment. I'll now turn the call over to Greg Stapley, CareTrust REITs Chairman and CEO. Greg?

Thanks, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. Last quarter, we were concerned about the near-term effects of the rising wave of Delta variant infections and the possibility of a stall in the census recovery that was just getting underway. Fortunately, those concerns were short-lived, and we can report the occupancy gains have steadily continued in most markets, with a few facilities actually having fully recovered in census. While we're still far from pre-pandemic occupancy overall, the continuing trajectory of the census recovery is consistent with our expectations so far. These gains on the census and revenue front are welcome news, but only half of the equation. A shortage of qualified workers and a sharp rise in labor costs is a growing challenge, especially as patient and resident census rises. Several of our tenants report turning some patients away simply because they lack the necessary staff to care for more. In spite of the challenges still facing both the skilled nursing and seniors housing industries, pricing for assets, and skilled assets in particular, has been unusually strong. As Mark will explain more fully in a moment, our disciplined underwriting approach is dictating that we forego some opportunities while we wait for pricing to rationalize. When that happens, and it always does, eventually, we expect to benefit from having lots of dry powder on hand. We believe that the value of that discipline is more evident than ever in our portfolio today. With the exception of one small short-term deferral, our tenants have been able to pay their rents right along this year, despite the effects of the pandemic. While the industry is not yet out of the woods, I would be remiss if I did not note for the record that we do see some encouraging indicators of strength emerging in our portfolio, independent of the provider relief. Dave will talk more about that in just a moment. That said, we're very pleased with the quarter. We posted double-digit normalized FFO growth of 13% over the same quarter last year, and normalized FAD growth of 15.1%. We collected 96.2% of contract rents in Q3 and 96.1% thus far for October, with the shortage being the one deferral that we disclosed last quarter, which we still expect to collect by 1231 to bring us to 100% of rents due thus far this year. We grew the portfolio with $32.5 million in new investments in the quarter, bringing our total capital deployment this year to over $184 million, and if things change, Some together as planned, we're maybe not quite done. We paid down a revolver following the acquisition and held leverage steady at a comfortable net debt to EBITDA of 3.7 times at quarter end. And as Bill will discuss in a moment, we are raising our 2021 guidance today. To cap it off, we got together with most of our operators last month at our annual operator conference, which was held in person here in Laguna Beach. I think it left everyone who came really invigorated and better prepared to tackle whatever comes next. So we are constructive on the long-term future of our portfolio, and Care Trust remains well-positioned to continue pursuing our mission of pairing great operators with meaningful opportunities to transform individual opportunities for the better. With that, I'll turn it over to Dave. Dave?