VICI Properties Inc.

Your conference will begin momentarily until then please continue to hold the line. Thank you. THE END Music Music Music Music Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to VG Properties' first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this conference is being recorded today, April 30th, 2021. I will now turn the call over to Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel with Vichy Properties.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. Everyone should have access to the company's first quarter 2021 earnings release and supplemental information. The release and supplemental information can be found in the investor section of the VG Properties website at www.vgproperties.com. Some of our comments today will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements, which are generally identified by the use of words such as will, believe, expect, should, guidance 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 more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact future operating results and financial conditions during the call we will discuss certain non-gap 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 first quarter 2021 earnings release and our supplemental information. Hosting the call today, we have Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, Dave Wasserman, Chief Accounting Officer, and Danny Veloy, Vice President of Finance. 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.

Thanks, Samantha. Good morning to everyone on the line, and thanks very much for joining us today. Some of you may recall that I started our last earnings call on February 19th by pointing out the pre-call commentary on our earnings release concerning Q4 2020 and full year 2020 pretty much distilled down to VG meets consensus. And me being me, I couldn't help more or less yelling out, hey, consensus kind of misses the point. This is what I actually said exactly. Did VG achieve consensus is, of course, a key question, but we think it's also worth asking, did consensus call for antipopular share growing, staying steady, or declining? If it called for growth, was it a lot of growth or a little of growth? In VG's case, we reported what we believed at the time, back again on February 19th, would prove to be a lot of growth. 10.8% AFFO growth for full year 2020, and 24.3% AFFO growth for Q4 2020. Now that the Q4 2020 reporting period is well behind us, we know with certainty that Vichy did indeed post the highest AFFO per share growth of any American triple net REIT in 2020 for the year and in Q4 2020. Twelve out of 19 American triple net REITs reported AFFO per share declines in 2020. Among those triple net REITs that grew, the closest to VG achieved 7.0% AFFO per share growth for 2020, for the year, and 11.8% growth for Q4 2020. The average AFFO per share year-over-year change, and I'm emphasizing the word change, and I don't want to use the word growth because negative growth is an oxymoron, The year-over-year change for triple net REITs in 2020 was on average negative 6.9%. Back on February 19th, and as one of the few REITs to restore guidance, we announced 2021 guidance calling for between $1.82 and $1.87 of AFFO per share. In a moment, David will reaffirm that guidance. If in 2021 we achieve the midpoint of our guidance, our year-over-year ASFO per share growth will be approximately 12%. If you measure our ASFO per share growth from 2019 to the midpoint of our 2021 guidance, you end up with a growth rate for that period, that two-year, three-year period, of approximately 25%. To put Vici's earnings growth into perspective, we encourage those who own our stock and those who follow us to dust off that old school metric known as the price earnings growth ratio or PEG ratio. In the case of Vici or any other REIT that reports AFFO, you calculate the PEG ratio by comparing the current AFFO earnings multiple to the projected AFFO per share growth rate. These two numbers, the AFFO multiple and the AFFO per share growth rate percentage, are then expressed in ratio to each other. Aretha trades at a 16-time multiple of AFFO and has projected AFFO per share earnings growth of 16% would be said to have a PEG ratio of 1 to 1. Aretha trades at a 16-time AFFO multiple and has projected AFFO per share earnings growth of 8% would have a PEG ratio of 2 to 1. Obviously, the lower the peg ratio, the less you are paying for growth. The higher the peg ratio, the more you are paying for growth, if any is there. We encourage you to look at the current peg ratios for America's triple net REITs. But because 2020 was a decline year for so many triple nets, again, 12 out of 19 triple nets saw ASFO per share declines in 2020. We suggest you look at their PEG ratios over the period of 2019 through 2021. Take each triple net REITs actual 2019 AFFO per share as the base, measure that against 2021 consensus AFFO per share, and then compare the resulting percentage of change against the current AFFO multiple of the REIT. To make the measurement meaningful, you'll need to eliminate those triple net REITs that show lower AFFO per share in 2021 than they did in 2019. And that, in fact, means you have to eliminate eight of the 18 triple net REITs, excluding Vici, in our sample group. Yes, according to FactSet, eight of these 18 triple net REITs show consensus AFFO per share earnings for 2021 that are lower than 2019. Based on data, either publicly available or through a fact set, the resulting average PEG ratio for triple net REITs that showed 2019 to 2021 AFFO per share growth, again, excluding VCHE, is a PEG ratio of 2.5 to 1, meaning, of course, that the average current AFFO multiple for these REITs of 17.5 is 2.5 times the average expected AFFO per share growth rate percentage of 7%, for the period of 2019 through 2021. We encourage you to calculate Vici's PEG ratio based on our current AFFL multiple and our projected AFFL growth percentage based on the midpoint of our guidance. Whether you measure our growth percentage for 2021 versus 2020, a period for which the midpoint of our 2021 guidance yields 12% growth in AF mobile per share, or 2019, a period for which the midpoint of our 2021 guidance yields 25% growth in AF mobile per share, we are confident you will end up with a V2PEG ratio that stands up very well to the TripleNet REIT group and likely any other American REIT out there. The follow-on question, of course, is, well, Vichy, what about next year, 2022, and the years after that? Bear with me just a second. I'm now going to turn the call over to John Payne. He will tell you about our drivers of AFO growth in 2022. And for the period beyond 2022, we believe VG stockholders can feel confident in our robust, embedded pipeline of property acquisition opportunities and, as well, our strong record at sourcing, executing, and funding open market deal flow. John, over to you.