CareTrust REIT, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to Care Trust REIT's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Lauren Beal, Care Trust Senior Vice President and Controller. Please go ahead, Ms. Beal.

Thank you and welcome to CareTrust REIT's third quarter 2022 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 CareTrust'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 reason. During the call, the company will reference non-GAAP metrics such as EBITDA, FFO, and FAD, or FAD, and normalized 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 Dave Sedgwick, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Lamb, Chief Investment Officer, James Collister, Executive Vice President, and myself, Lauren Beals. I will now turn the call over to Dave Sedgwick, CareTrust REIT's President and CEO. Dave?

Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. First, we'd like to excuse our CFO, Bill Wagner, from today's call. Bill's brother very recently passed away, and Bill is spending time with family this week. And on behalf of Bill, we'd like to thank you for the many condolences and concern that has been expressed. We love Bill and pray for him and his family during this time. Now, if I can shift gears, Zooming out a bit to look at the big picture, today's broader economic conditions bring both opportunities and challenges for our business. Historically, healthcare has been a hedge against recessionary pressures as demand for services is unaffected, while tight labor markets tend to loosen. Drilling down further to our market, highly levered buyers have been very active in our space for several years. And the tight debt market today has caused difficulties for those buyers and therefore slowed some of our pending dispositions. But the flip side is that the rising rates are clearly tipping the scales in our favor on the acquisitions front. We expect to continue to see an uptick in deals across our desk in the coming months. In October, we hosted our Operator Conference, wherein we collectively addressed topics like overcoming the tight labor market, purchasing, reimbursement, the administration's policy proposals, and more. We came away from that conference energized and cautiously optimistic about returning to growth in 2023 with who we believe are among the most elite operators in the sector. Each operator is unique. Most are eager to grow with us, while some are still very much finding their footing as they continue to manage through historically tough operating conditions. We're deeply grateful for each of them and their tireless work to improve the lives of their staff, residents, patients, and the communities they serve. We're also encouraged by the overall portfolio strength as we head into a new year that will likely see the eventual termination of the public health emergency. In our supplemental, we are reporting lease coverage on an adjusted basis, excluding assets held for sale. That coverage through June is just north of two times for EBITDAR and 2.58 times for EBITDARM. We collected 93.4 percent of rents inclusive of deposits applied in the quarter, 92.5 percent excluding those deposits. And more currently, in October, we collected 95.6 percent inclusive of deposits applied and 92.7 exclusive of deposits. I'll conclude by acknowledging the great work done by the team here to close on the sale of the TRIO skilled nursing portfolio in the face of several headwinds. Getting that deal across the finish line in September was a top priority for the company, and our team did a great job. Even after 30 months of the pandemic, this year's bear market and repositioning work, we have produced a five-year total shareholder return of 22.2% through Q3. As we conclude the portfolio optimization work in the coming months, we will be poised to take advantage of increasing opportunities to grow as you've become accustomed to with Care Trust. With that, I'll turn it over to James to update you on the portfolio and the quarter. Thanks, Dave.