Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Essential Properties Realty Trust's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This conference call is being recorded, and a replay of the call will be available three hours after the completion of the call for the next two weeks. The dial-in details for the replay can be found in yesterday'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. On the call this morning are Peter Mavoides, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rob Salisbury, Chief Financial Officer, Max Jenkins, Chief Operating Officer, A.J. Peel, Chief Investment Officer, and Cheryl Call, Director of Financial Planning and Data Analytics. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Cheryl Call.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. for essential properties first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During this conference call, we will make certain statements that may be considered forward-looking statements under federal securities law. 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 filings with the SEC and in yesterday's earnings press release. In our earnings release last night for the quarter, we reported gap net income of $60 million and ASFO of $105.8 million. With that, I'll turn the call over to Pete.

Thanks, Cheryl. And thank you to everyone joining us today for your interest in essential properties. We had a productive first quarter deploying $389 million into 126 properties and raising $419 million of equity in support of our pipeline while growing our AFFO per share by 11% year over year. Despite a macro backdrop characterized by heightened volatility, our team continued to source and execute attractive investment opportunities, as our ability to deliver capital is highly valued in this environment. Our focus on servicing relationships and providing sale-easeback capital to growing middle market operators across our targeted industries continues to be a differentiator for our company. Investment cap rates were stable this quarter, with an initial cap rate of 7.7% and a gap yield of 8.8%. This meaningful spread to our cost of capital is a key driver of our earnings growth. With $1.5 billion of available liquidity and low leverage of 3.5 times pro forma net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDA RE, our balance sheet positions us well to continue to deliver compelling growth.