Ventas, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Greg and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Ventas second quarter 2026 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'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Once again, star one. I'd now like to turn the call over to BJ Grant, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. BJ, you have the floor.

Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Ventas second quarter 2026 results conference call. Yesterday, we issued our second quarter 2026 earnings release, presentation materials, and supplemental information package, which are available on the Ventas website at ir.ventasrete.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 Ventos website. Certain non-GAAP financial measures will also be discussed on this call, and for a reconciliation of those 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 Debra A. Cafaro, Chairman and CEO of Ventas.

Thank you, BJ, and happy birthday. Good morning to all of our shareholders and other participants. I'm pleased to welcome you to the Ventas second quarter 2026 earnings call. Bent House delivered excellent results in the quarter, powered by strong growth in our senior housing operating portfolio and accelerating senior housing investment activity. With a decade of powerful demographic demand ahead, we intend to capture the unprecedented multi-year NOI growth and value creation opportunity by growing our shop footprint organically and externally and increasing our company growth rate. Since we adopted our 1-2-3 strategy in late 2023, our team has executed it with commitment and excellence to deliver outstanding returns and build our financial strength. We've made enterprise-wide investments in our innovative platform and team to drive our performance and elevate our industry. The results are clear. This quarter we delivered 10% total company same property NOI growth. U.S. Shop led the way with 18% NOI and 360 basis points of occupancy growth year-over-year as we continue to outperform the industry. Our second quarter FFO per share of 97 cents represented 9% year-over-year growth. For the full year, we are again raising our normalized FFO expectations to $3.85 to $3.90 per share, equating to 8% to 10% growth, primarily because of our increased investment activity. The Ventas investment engine is firing on all cylinders. We now expect to complete $4.5 billion of 2026 investments focused on senior housing. from $3 billion previously. We are executing at significant scale, and we've completed over $8 billion in investments since the beginning of 2024, adding more than 23,000 units across 174 communities to our SHOP portfolio. Our investment success has been enabled by the integration of our Ventas OI platform with our capital allocation decisions under Justin's leadership. Our number one capital allocation priority remains U.S. senior housing, particularly acquisitions that combine attractive growth, yield, and risk-adjusted return potential. Our investment pipeline is active and actionable, and we're using our competitive advantages to win deals that meet our strategic and financial criteria, including double digits to mid-teens on levered IRRs and discounts to replacement costs. The private to public arbitrage opportunity for Ventas and senior housing is compelling, and we intend to use the power of our franchise to aggressively build on our investment momentum. Our investment activities and outlook, of course, are based upon the unprecedented demographic demand for senior housing. The leading edge of the nearly 70 million baby boomers has just begun turning 80 this year. ushering in a decade where the growth rate of the senior population more than doubles, yet new starts remain at record lows. With demand expected to substantially outrun supply and the persistence of elongated construction timelines and high costs, we foresee an exceptional opportunity for outsized growth and value creation in the coming years. We also expect to make more dispositions of non-strategic assets in the back half of this year to improve our growth rate and expand our senior housing footprint. The combination of more shop investments, strong shop internal NOI growth, and increased dispositions should make shop 60% of our $60 billion enterprise by year end. In closing, as you look across the investment landscape, Ventas offers investors an attractive combination of hard assets and growth from need-based secular demands not correlated with the AI economy. With strong property and earnings growth, investment momentum, scale, financial strength in our differentiated platform, we are focused on delivering outperformance and winning together while advancing our mission of helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives. Our whole Ventas team is in it to win it, and as Justin likes to say, the best is yet to come. Now, Justin, I'm pleased to turn the call over to you.