Ventas, Inc.

Hello and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ventas fourth quarter 2022 earnings release conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to B.J. Grant, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Regina. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Ventas Fourth Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Yesterday, we issued our Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Supplemental Investor Package and Presentation Materials, which are available on the Ventas website at ir.ventasrete.com. As a reminder, remarks today... may include forward-looking statements in other matters. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties in a variety of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in such statements. For a more detailed discussion of those factors, please refer to our earnings release for this quarter and to our most recent SEC filings, all of which are available on the Ventos website. Certain non-GAAP financial measures will also be discussed on this call, and for a reconciliation of these measures to the most closely comparable GAAP measures, please refer to our supplemental posted on the Investor Relations website. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Deborah A. Cafaro, Chairman and CEO.

Thanks, BJ, and good morning to all of our shareholders and other participants. Welcome to the Ventus fourth quarter and year-end 2022 earnings call. We are pleased to deliver a strong fourth quarter, which reflects the attractive operating and financial results of our diverse portfolio and and the benefits of our key strategic initiatives. Fourth quarter normalized FFO with 73 cents per share, fueled by accelerating shop growth at 19%, record medical office building performance, and profitability from our third-party institutional capital management business, VIM. The demand fundamentals that support our business are strong and getting stronger across all Ventas asset classes. which are unified in serving the nation's large and growing aging population. After significant capital recycling and asset management actions, our diverse portfolio of high-quality senior living communities, medical office buildings, R&I labs, and other healthcare assets is well-positioned to capitalize on these demand trends. In 2022, Ventas began what we believe will be a multi-year growth and recovery cycle led by SHOP and supported by favorable supply-demand fundamentals, actions we've taken in the portfolio, and our post-pandemic rebound. In senior housing, there are compelling supply-demand tailwinds. The over-80 population will grow at record levels in 2023, yet we continue to see construction as a percentage of inventory at its lowest level in five years and substantially better in Ventas markets. Over the last few years, we have taken decisive actions to position our shop portfolio to capitalize on this exciting, demographically-led demand. We strengthened our team, enhanced our powerful analytic capabilities, rolled out the Ventas OI platform, sold, transitioned, and acquired properties, and invested capital in communities with strong market fundamentals, all to win the recovery. Benefiting from these trends and actions, we are well underway to recapturing the post-pandemic shop NOI opportunity. Our portfolio has already enjoyed significant occupancy and NOI growth from the COVID trough, and we see even more recapture potential ahead of us in the coming years as we first seek to reach 2019 performance levels and then hopefully exceed them. Bob also took significant steps to maintain our financial strength and flexibility and improve our balance sheet and liquidity. These actions garnered three positive credit rating moves in 2022 and reduced our 2023 maturities to a very manageable level. In 2022, we also continued our long history of value creation with $1.2 billion of new investments, often with key partners. These include the $425 million Atrium Health, Wake Forest University School of Medicine development in Charlotte, North Carolina, $200 million in senior housing investments, including the acquisition of Mangrove Bay and a new development with group Maurice, both in very attractive markets, and $300 million in MOB investments, highlighted by the acquisition of an 18-property MOB portfolio leased to Arden. Finally, we remain committed to our values, including our ESG leadership. We accelerated our progress in 2022 as we further diversified and elevated our board, and made a bold commitment to achieve net zero operational carbon emissions by 2040. These efforts will be advanced under the leadership of our General Counsel, Carrie Roberts, who has the passion and experience to move us forward. Now, we enter 2023 with strong momentum. Today, we are pleased to introduce full-year normalized FFO guidance representing 5% growth at the midpoint. We are projecting unprecedented organic growth in our portfolio, once again driven by SHOP and complemented by the positive compounding contributions of our office business, led by Pete. We also will continue to build out our VIM business, which already has over $5 billion in assets under management. and mine our non-property investments for value, as evidenced by both the pending Arden equity stake sale and our recently completed Atria Glynnis software deal, while we also seek to optimize the outcome in our Sentier loan. Finally, we will continue to invest capital wherever we find compelling opportunities to sustain and reinforce our new cycle of success. The macroeconomic assumptions underlying our forecast include some slowing of the economy, moderating inflation, softening labor conditions, and continued, albeit less aggressive, Fed tightening. Against that backdrop, and in many other likely scenarios, we believe our business is relatively advantaged Because demographic demand for our assets is large, growing, and resilient, we have demonstrated strong pricing power in shop, and softening economic conditions should benefit our operations in multiple ways. One final note. In January, Justin assumed the additional role of Chief Investment Officer at Ventus. I know you'll want to join me in congratulating Justin, and I want to thank him for his continued leadership, which has been instrumental in our success and positive outlook. Working with our strong teams, Justin will use his experience and insights to create value by making good investments across our asset classes, enhancing the connection between our investment activity and business operations, and deploying the powerful Ventas OI platform across our organization. And now I'm happy to turn the call over to the man himself, Justin.