Ventas, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Jeannie and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ventos fourth quarter 2025 earnings 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 followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to BJ Grant, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Jeannie. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Ventos fourth quarter and full year 2025 results conference call. Yesterday, we issued our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings release, presentation materials, and supplemental information package, which are available on the Ventos website at ir.ventosread.com. As a reminder, remarks today may include forward-looking statements and other matters. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and a variety of topics 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 Ventas 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 information package posted on the Investor Relations website. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Deborah A. Cafaro, Chairman and CEO of Ventas.

Thank you, BJ. I want to welcome all of our shareholders and other participants to the Ventas fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. 2025 was an outstanding year for Ventas. We delivered strong results from the execution of our 123 strategy focused on senior housing. As secular demand from a large and growing aging population strengthens and supply remains constrained, we are intent on the significant value creation opportunity ahead. We plan to use our advantage position proprietary Ventas operational insights platform, financial strength, and industry relationships to capture the unprecedented multi-year growth opportunity in senior housing, while we also help individuals live longer, healthier, and happier lives. In 2025, we drove growth at scale. Our normalized FFO per share increased by 9%. And our same-store shop cash net operating income grew 15%, our fourth consecutive year of double-digit shop NOI growth. Our enterprise value exceeded $50 billion, and our fourth quarter annualized NOI and shop NOI reached $2.5 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively. We raised $7 billion of capital from a wide array of sources at attractive prices during the year. Our investment activity also accelerated as we closed $2.5 billion of high-quality senior housing investments that enhance our enterprise growth. By year end, we owned over 83,000 shop units, and 53% of our NOI was generated by our shop communities. our investors were rewarded in 2025 as Ventus delivered total shareholder returns of 35%, significantly outperforming our industry benchmarks by wide margins and the S&P 500 in a year when it reached record highs. The Ventus team has been outstanding in its commitment to each other and to excellence, as we've worked together to deliver value and performance across our stakeholder base. We are keenly focused on the multi-year NOI growth and value creation opportunities ahead. Let's start with the durable and powerful demand trends in senior housing. This year marks a historic demographic inflection point when baby boomers start to turn 80. This cohort of nearly 70 million individuals is the wealthiest generation ever. As the baby boomers age, the over 80 population should grow 28% in the next five years and double in two decades. Today, more people than ever are choosing senior housing for the valuable benefits it provides at an affordable cost that is comparable to the cost of staying at home. Senior housing is a consumer-driven, private pay business that provides important support, socialization, and safety benefits to residents. We were once again reminded of the value of senior housing during the recent winter storms when care providers across the country kept residents safe, warm, and well cared for in our communities, while many seniors living alone lost power in heat. Meanwhile, the new supply of senior housing continues to hover around all-time lows. To put this in context, there were only about 2,500 new senior housing units started in the fourth quarter of 2025, while we expect over 2 million people to turn 80 in 2026. Both sides of this demand supply imbalance are weighted strongly in our favor. and Ventas is exceedingly well-positioned to capitalize on this unprecedented opportunity. With a long runway ahead, we intend to continue executing our strategic vision of, one, delivering outside senior housing organic growth, two, making value-creating investments focused on senior housing, and three, driving cash flow throughout our portfolio. We also want to extend our trajectory of enhanced financial strength and flexibility. Ventas has built a scale platform to drive our performance. Our experienced team, proprietary analytics tools, strong balance sheet, data capture, and industry relationships give us a competitive moat in senior housing that continues to expand. With our vision, strategy, and market positioning in place, I'll close on our 2026 operating guidance, investment activities, and dividend increase. In 2026, we expect to deliver high single-digit growth in normalized FFO per share, led by SHOP. We expect SHOP to produce our fifth consecutive year of double-digit same-store cash NOI growth. with occupancy, rate, and margin, all showing healthy year-over-year increases. Our total company same-store cash NOI growth should be nearly 10% in 2026. On the investment front, our team and our pipeline are extremely active. Our number one capital allocation priority remains US senior housing. We've already closed over $800 million and high-quality senior housing acquisitions year to date, and we are highly confident we can complete $2.5 billion of investments focused on senior housing this year. We intend to remain aggressive in expanding our senior housing business through investment activity that provides attractive risk-adjusted returns and enhances our enterprise growth rate. Finally, I'm pleased to share that our Board of Directors has approved an 8% increase in our quarterly dividend on the strength of our performance and positive multi-year outlook. Earnings and dividend growth are important components of the Ventas investment thesis. The whole Ventas team is aligned and focused on continued outperformance at scale, and we're in it to win it. With that, I'm happy to turn the call over to Justin.