CareTrust REIT, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Care Trust REIT fourth quarter and full year 2023 operating results call. I would now like to welcome Lauren Beal, SVP controller, to begin the call. Lauren, over to you.

Thank you and welcome to Care Trust REIT's fourth quarter 2023 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. Acceptance 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. In addition, certain operator coverage and financial information that we discuss is based on data provided by our operators that has not been independently verified by CareTrust. Yesterday, CareTrust filed its Form 10-K, an accompanying press release, and its quarterly financial supplement. each of which can be accessed on the investor relations section of the Care Trust 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, Bill Wagner, Chief Financial Officer, and James Collister, Chief Investment Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Dave Sedgwick, Care Trust REIT's President and CEO. Dave?

Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before I talk about our outlook for 2024, let me first thank the entire Care Trust team for their great work in 23. It was a year of growth for the company on several fronts. Internally, the team is more capable, creative, and collaborative than ever before. It's a real privilege to work every day with this team. I also want to thank our operators who we consider by and large to be among the very best in the business. It's their relentless dedication to their staff, residents, and patients that is making this world a better place, and we're honored to help them expand their influence. Now, this time last year, we started to sense a window of opportunity open to return to external growth in a meaningful way as the bulk of our repositioning work concluded and the credit market tightened. Sellers and brokers prioritize the execution certainty that we bring to the table and deal flow picked up. I'm very pleased to report $288 million of new investments last year at a blended stabilized yield of 9.8%. And as good as those numbers are, maybe more exciting is the fact that we ended the year with the full $600 million available on our line of credit and just under $300 million of cash on the balance sheet. We have never had this amount of dry powder. Why? Because we expect 2024 to be a strong year of investments and we positioned ourselves accordingly. As we've reported, we've kicked off the year with 63 million of new investments. 52 million of that are secured loans. Let me reiterate briefly our philosophy for lending. Loans in this space are generally shorter term, somewhere between two to five years, which can cause some lumpiness to earnings as paybacks occur. So for us, in order to lend, three criteria must be met. First, the investment will be run by a top shelf operator with whom we want to start or expand our relationship. Second, the investment meets our historic underwriting criteria and is accretive in year one. And third, the transaction provides for a path to future real estate acquisitions, either built into the deal directly or simply from the relationship. Since 2022, and not including the loans announced this week, we've made about $170 million worth of loans, each one meeting these criteria. Now, here's what's remarkable. As we examine the real estate acquisitions made last year and those in our current pipeline, We count over 300 million largely off-market deals that are a direct result of the relationships with the investors, borrowers, and operators that we established from that strategic planning activity. That is a virtuous cycle we will continue to feed. James will give you more color on the investments in the quarter and year to date and on the current pipeline, which as we sit here today is about 250 million. not including larger deals that we regularly review. Now turning to the portfolio, you'll see in the supplemental lease coverage slightly improved overall. Occupancy for the quarter for both skilled nursing and seniors housing was basically flat compared to Q3. And I wanted to follow up on a couple of operators. The transition of two EDURO facilities to another operator today is on track for a March 1st transition. Aduro's pro forma lease coverage excluding those two facilities goes from just under one times to just north of it. Also, we're still under contract to sell the portfolio of 11 skilled nursing assets with negative EBITDAR, primarily in the Midwest. Understandably, financing has been challenging, but the buyer continues to make good faith efforts that lead us to believe a deal will get done. Finally, we're pleased to issue guidance again. Bill will walk you through our several assumptions that results in 2024 normalized FFO per share in the range of $1.43 to $1.45. Please remember that when we issue guidance, we do not include assumptions for new investments for a couple reasons. First, due to regulatory and licensing requirements that always accompany these transactions, timing of deals can be tricky. And second, we do not set arbitrary growth targets. so that we can retain our customary discipline model for growth. Now, before I hand it over to James to talk about investments, let me just summarize our outlook for 2024 like this. We have a favorable cost of capital that allows for accretive investments. We have a balance sheet that provides enormous flexibility and capacity. And we have a macro environment that has opened a window of opportunity as long as the credit market remains challenging. which leads me to believe that 2024 should be a strong year for external growth for Care Trust. With that, James will talk to our recent investment activity and pipeline. James? Thanks, Dave. Good morning, everyone.