MGM Growth Properties LLC Class A common shares representing limited liability company interests

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vici Properties third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, October 26, 2023. I'll now turn the call over to Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel with Vici Properties.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. Everyone should have access to the company's third quarter 2023 earnings release and supplemental information. The release and supplemental information can be found in the investor section of the Vici Properties website at www.viciproperties.com. Some of our comments today will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements, which are usually identified by use of words such as will, believe, expect, should, guidance, intends, outlook, projects, or other similar phrases, are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Therefore, you should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on them. I refer you to the company's SEC filings for more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact future operating results and financial conditions. During the call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available on our website in our third quarter 2023 earnings release, our supplemental information, and our filings with the SEC. For additional information with respect to non-GAAP measures of certain tenants and or counterparties discussed on this call, please refer to the respective company's public filings with the SEC. Hosting the call today is Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, Gabe Wasserman, Chief Accounting Officer, and Moira McCluskey, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets. Ed and team will provide some opening remarks, and then we will open the call to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ed. Thank you, Samantha, and good morning, everyone.

The third quarter of 2023 is a quarter most REITs are happy to be done with. The REIT index in Q3 2023 was down 8%, swinging negative for the year after not a great year last year, and October has only continued a negative trend. But while the REIT stock marketplace didn't have a great quarter in Q3 2023, the key question to ask is what a given REIT did in Q3 and now in October. to improve its business for the future? At VG, our answer to this question has a number of elements to it. We played offense selectively. We played defense. We capitalized on certain current conditions. We prepared for potential future conditions. We increased our dividend, effective with Q3 2023, at an annualized rate that well exceeds forward inflation expectations, and continued a rate of dividend growth since 2019 that is three times greater than the largest net lease rate over the same period. And if there has ever been a period in which one should value a solidly covered and solidly growing dividend that currently exceeds a 10-year rate, this is it. Finally, in a year in which REIT earnings growth has generally been difficult to come by, Vici's AFFO per share earnings in Q3 grew 10.7 percent year over year. Vici announced within and subsequent to quarter end about $1.1 billion of new capital commitments. While most of you have seen the strategic and economic merits of these investments, we know there are some of you who feel that we should have left that capital in a stockpile. Some of you feel, understandably, that volatility is too high and visibility is too low. We agree. Volatility is high and visibility is low. And with the market movements of especially the last few weeks, we are sober and cautious about what the market conditions for capital allocation could be from here for how long, no one knows. But I can tell you that we continue to have high conviction about the commitments we've recently made with Century, with Canyon Ranch, and now with Bolero. These commitments represented immediately accretive investments in real estate that should have positive impacts on 2024 earnings. These commitments also represented investments in relationships that can and will be the answer in future years to, okay, now that things are back to normal, how are you going to grow, VG? Again, none of us know when the all-clear signal will sound, but it will at some point, and REITs that continue to invest in relationships will be best positioned to resume growing when market conditions and values have stabilized. That's what we at BG did in the recovery out of COVID. Our situational readiness put us in the position to acquire the Venetian and MGP, investments that are a key driver of our 2023 earnings growth, And we made these investments when many other would-be bears hadn't been fully readying themselves for recovery. We've been able to undertake our recent investments because of the astute and agile work of Moira McCluskey and the Vici Capital Markets team. Going back to our nearly $1 billion overnight equity raise in early January 2023, Vici has opportunistically raised a total of approximately $1.3 billion of forward equity in 2023, giving VG a cost of funds for our recent investments that drive the immediate accretion of which we've spoken. We also played defense this past quarter. During Q3 and subsequent to quarter end, we played defense by using close to $1 billion of equity in cash and only about $55 million of debt to fund our new capital commitments, demonstrating our commitment to our long-range leverage targets. David Kieske and the VG Finance team also played defense by adding a further $200 million of swap protection since Q2 in anticipation of our 2024 refinancing of $1.05 billion of the legacy MGP 5 and 5-8 notes, giving us a total of $450 million of swap protection. And while we did all this, our tenants continued to demonstrate the vitality of their businesses, as John will speak of momentarily. I'm very proud of the work the entire VG team did this quarter. Against a volatile and difficult backdrop, the VG team, working within one of the lightest G&A loads of any S&P 500 REIT, continued to create a culture of excellence and resilience that I'm confident will serve VG stakeholders well for years to come, no matter what those years bring. With that, I'll turn the call over to John Payne for an operating and transaction marketplace update. And John will then pass the mic to David Kieske, who will give our financial and guidance update. John.