Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Essential Properties Realty Trust's second 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 Pete Mavoides, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rob Salisbury, Chief Financial Officer, Max Jenkins, Chief Operating Officer, AJ 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, operators. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Essential Properties Second Quarter for the 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 GAAP net income of $74.5 million and ASFO of $110.1 million. With that, I'll turn the call over to Pete.

Thanks, Cheryl. Thank you to everyone joining us today for your interest in essential properties. In the second quarter, we accretively invested $332 million, reflecting the strength of our deal sourcing engine and the deep relationships we have built with middle market operators in our targeted industry. As transaction activity accelerated through the quarter, our team effectively converted a strong pipeline of opportunities into closed sale-leaseback investments, demonstrating our execution capabilities and the competitive advantage of our relationship-driven origination platform. Cap rates came in slightly better versus prior quarter at an average initial cash yield of 7.8% and a gap yield of 9.1%. preserving a meaningful spread to our cost of capital that is a key driver of our earnings growth. This also reflects our ability to consistently source and close attractive opportunities, even in a dynamic transaction environment. Eighty-four percent of our investments were structured as sale leasebacks, and sale leaseback liquidity continues to be a compelling source of growth capital for middle market operators across our targeted industry. Our capital position remains robust with pro forma leverage of 3.5 times and $1.7 billion of liquidity, which was bolstered by our unsecured bond issuance during the quarter. With our capital needs largely addressed for the balance of 2026 and well into 2027, we are well funded to continue to execute on our growth strategy and drive durable and compelling earnings growth. Investment activity and portfolio operating trends are tracking ahead of budgeted expectations, allowing us to once again increase our 2026 AFFO per share guidance to a new range of $2.01 to $2.05, and our investment volume guidance to a range of $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion. Our revised AFFO per share guidance implies a growth rate of over 7% at the midpoint and over 8% at the high end. Turning to the portfolio, we ended the quarter with investments in 2,493 properties that were leased to over 500 tenants. Our weighted average lease term is over 14 years. Our weighted average lease escalations are 1.9%, and just 2.3% of our annual base rent is expiring through 2028. With that, I'll turn the call over to A.J. Peel, our Chief Investment Officer, who will provide an update on our portfolio and asset management activities.