VICI Properties Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the VICI Properties Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that today's conference is being recorded today, July 30, 2020. I would now like to turn the call over to Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel with VICI Properties.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. Good morning. Everyone should have access to the company's second quarter 2020 earnings release and supplemental information. The release and supplemental information can be found in the investor section of the Vichy Properties website at www.vchyproperties.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 the use of words such as will, believe, expect, should, intends, 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 a 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 in our second quarter 2020 earnings release and our supplemental information. Posting the call today, we have Ed Pekoniak, Chief Executive Officer, John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, and Gabe Wasserman, Chief Accounting Officer. 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. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Here's what remains foremost for us at this time. We continue to hope that all our stakeholders are weathering this COVID-19 crisis as best as can be. We held our last earnings call on Thursday, May 1st, and in my opening remarks, I focused on what, because of COVID-19, we did not know with any certainty at the time. We did not know when our assets would reopen, what the recovery pace of our tenants' businesses would be, when exactly our $3.2 billion transaction with Eldorado Caesars would close, Finally, when VT would be able to return to an offensive portfolio growth strategy. Here, today, July 30th, we now know four key facts. Number one, virtually all of our assets have reopened. Number two, our operators have seen strong operating recovery in our regional assets, and through the end of June, we're seeing improving results than our two Las Vegas assets. Number three, The Eldorado-Caesars merger closed on July 20th, and our $3.2 billion portion of that overall transaction will produce annual incremental rent of $253 million at a 7.8% cap rate while also replenishing VG's embedded growth pipeline. Number four, we returned to offense and continued our opportunistic growth on June 15th when we announced our intention to provide a $400 million mortgage loan on the brand-new Caesars Forum Convention Center and purchased 23 more acres of strip proximate land, giving us a total land assemblage of 50 strip proximate acres, giving Vichy the only large-scale opportunity to deepen the Las Vegas Strip at its center and to participate in the potential for long-term growth that this land represents. It all added up to another quarter that validated Vici's business model and generated market-leading growth. For second quarter 2020 and in July, Vici collected 100% of cash rent from all of our tenants, which very few American REITs were able to do in Q2. This contributed to Vici achieving 20.4% growth in adjusted EBITDA year over year. which we believe will be among the very highest EBITDA growth rate among all American REITs for the quarter. In a moment, John Payne will discuss our operators' performance and the benefits of the seizures merger in more depth, and David Kesey will give you details about our own financial performance. But let me take a moment to speak of the root causes of our Q2 2020 performance. We believe Vichy was able to continue collecting 100% of rent, deliver 20.4% EBITDA growth, and opportunistically go back on offense in Q2 2020 because fundamentally we have high-quality tenants. For any rent-collecting multi-tenanted REIT, the strength of the REIT's business model is the aggregated strength of its tenancy. business models. All of our tenants at this time are gaming operators, and during Q2, gaming operators generally, and our five gaming operators specifically, namely Caesars, Penn National, Hard Rock, Century Casinos, and Jack Entertainment, showed the strength, liquidity, durability, and agility of their business models. As most of you know, I've spent time and have experience in a number of leisure, recreational, and hospitality sectors, both as an operator and as a real estate investment manager. In coming to gaming real estate, as I did in 2017, I've come into a sector where the operators are, I strongly believe, the most dynamic and success-driven operators in global leisure and hospitality. Over the course of this COVID-19 crisis, Our five operators have shown just how skilled, energetic, decisive, and driven they are. Here's what they have shown over the last few months. Quick and effective action to shore up their liquidity. Quick and effective action to minimize costs and cash burn rates during the period of closure. Quick and effective action to be ready to reopen safely once given the green light. Finally, quick and effective action to restore revenue and EBITDA when many other leisure sectors haven't even reopened yet. What we're also seeing is that our operators' businesses are key factors to the health of their local economies and to their state and local treasuries. As long as our operators can operate safely, their states and cities want them open for everyone's benefit. At VG, we're sober, very sober, in fact, about the fact that the not over. We cannot rule out the resurgence of the virus could depress demand for or potentially lead to reclosures of casinos. But in what we've seen so far for our gaming tenants and for VG, this crisis may ultimately provide strong proof of the strength and quality of the gaming REIT business model, which is built in turn on the strength and quality of our tenants' businesses. To hear more about our tenants, I'll now turn the call over to our President and COO, John Payne. John?