Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to the Innovative Industrial Properties Incorporated fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Brian Wolfe, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining the call. Presenting today are Alan Gold, Executive Chairman, Paul Smithers, President and Chief Executive Officer, David Smith, Chief Financial Officer, Catherine Hastings, Chief Operating Officer, and Ben Regan, Chief Investment Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during today's conference call may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and actual results may differ materially due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Please refer to the documents filed by the company with the SEC Specifically, the most recent reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. We are not obligated to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, on today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial information such as FFO, normalized FFO, and adjusted FFO. You can find this information together with reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure in our earnings release issued yesterday, as well as in our 8-K filed with the SEC. I'll now hand the call over to Alan. Alan?

Thank you, Brian, and welcome, everyone. We are pleased to discuss our results for the full year 2023 and recent activity as we enter into our eighth full year of operations. The company performed well in 2023 and has continued to execute year-to-date, demonstrated by 1. Annual AFFO per share growth of 7%. 2. Increasing our annual dividends declared each year since inception in 2016. Three, committing capital totaling $119.5 million during 2023. Four, executing new leases and LOIs to release five properties representing over $140 million of invested capital. And five, further enhancing our liquidity position and strong balance sheet with the closing of a new $45 million revolving credit facility. For the year, IIP generated total revenues of $310 million and adjusted funds from operations of $256 million, increases of 12% and 10% over 2022. achieved during a time when we strategically determined to reduce our investment activity in light of macroeconomic uncertainties and significant increased cost of capital that financial performance allowed us to continue to grow our dividend with seven dollars and 22 cents of common stock dividends declared over the course of 2023 annual dividends increasing each year since inception Our most recent dividend declared in Q4 of $1.82 per share was at the midpoint of our board's target dividend payout range of 75% to 85% of AFFO. We have one of the strongest and most experienced teams of real estate professionals in the cannabis industry, a high quality portfolio, and a conservative and flexible balance sheet with a 12% debt to total gross assets. No variable rate debt, no debt maturities until May, 2026. We further enhanced our balance sheet position during Q4 with introduction of a revolving credit facility, and then recently upsized that facility earlier this month, which David will touch on further. On the investments front, we are very pleased with our execution on releasing initiatives as well as the opportunities we are seeing to selectively close on new investments, which Ben will discuss in more detail. From a regulatory perspective, as we noted in our prior call, we continue to follow closely the potential rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 under the Controlled Substance Act. Of course, there are significant benefits to this, the most important which, from our perspective, is the potential lifting of the confiscatory 280E federal taxes imposed on regulated cannabis operators. And Paul will discuss our thoughts in more detail. I will now turn the call over to Paul to discuss licensing, regulatory, and industry dynamics. Paul?