Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Essential Property Realty's Trust Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. This conference is being recorded, and a replay of the call will be available two hours after the completion of the call for the next two weeks. The dial-in details for the replay can be found in today's press release. Additionally, there will be an audio webcast available on Essential Properties' website at www.essentialproperties.com, an archive of which will be available for 90 days. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Dan Donlan, Senior Vice President and Head of Capital Markets at Essential Properties. Thank you, Dan. You may go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for Essential Properties' fourth quarter 2021 conference call. You're with me today to discuss our operating results for Pete Mavoides, our president and CEO, Greg Seibert, our COO, and Mark Patton, our CFO. During this conference call, we will make certain statements that may be considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. The company's actual future results may differ significantly from the matters discussed in these forward-looking statements, and we may not release revisions to those forward-looking statements to reflect changes after the statements were made. factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are disclosed from time to time in greater detail in the company's funds with the SEC and in yesterday's earnings press release. With that, Pete, please go ahead.

Thank you, Dan. And thank you to everyone who is joining us today for your interest in essential properties. We closed out 2021 on a strong note with $322 million of investments in the fourth quarter, and $974 million invested for the full year, both records for essential properties. Our positive momentum has continued into the new year with over $136 million of investments closed year to date, which coupled with our strong fourth quarter finish has led us to increase our 2022 AFFO per share guidance to a range of $1.47 to $1.51. Using the midpoint and excluding one-time fees and COVID related adjustments, this translates to a projected year-over-year earnings growth of 14% in 2022, which follows a 16% year-over-year growth in 2021 using the same methodology. As discussed last quarter, while we continue to expect our investment trajectory to moderate in 2022, which our guidance remains predicated on, Our current pipeline is robust due to the strengthening of our relationships, the vast and diverse nature of the marketplace for the properties leased to unrated and middle market tenants, and the continued desire of our operators to expand their footprint amidst a strong economic backdrop. With that in mind, our differentiated focus on capital deployment strategies has insulated us from the increased competition which is evidenced by our initial cash yields averaging 7.1% in 2020 and 7% in 2021. Looking at the quarter in more detail, our $322 million of investments had a weighted average cash yield of 6.9%, weighted average lease term of 16.3 years, and weighted average annual rent pumps of 1.6%. More importantly, though, Eighty-nine percent of these investments were derived from prior relationships, and 96 percent were direct sale leasebacks on our lease form. Turning to the portfolio, we ended the quarter with investments in 1,451 properties leased to 311 tenants operating in 16 distinct industries. Our weighted average lease term stood at 14 years, with just 5.4 percent of ABR expiring through 2026. Our weighted average unit-level coverage was 3.7 times, which improved versus last quarter's coverage of 3.5 times. While our traditional credit statistics, which focus on implied credit ratings and unit-level coverage, experienced solid sequential improvement this quarter, these statistics remain negatively skewed for industries like theaters and early childhood education. which faced state level shutdown and capacity restrictions well into spring of 2021 in certain areas of the country. Given that most of our tenants report trailing 12 months financials to us with a one-quarter lag, we do not expect these statistics to return to pre-COVID levels for another couple of quarters. Looking out to the balance of the year, we continue to believe our strong AFFO growth potential combined with our well-covered dividend yield and our commitment to prudently managing our balance sheet and portfolio risks offer investors a compelling total return opportunity. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Greg Seibert, our COO, who will take you through the portfolio and investment activity in greater detail. Greg?