Welltower Inc.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q1 2020 World Tower, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Should you need assistance during the call, please press star, then zero, and an operator will come back online to assist you. Thank you. I would now like to hand the call over to Mr. Matt McQueen, Senior Vice President of General Counsel. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Andrea, and good morning. As a reminder, certain statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements in the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Although West Harbor believes any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, the company can give no assurances that its projected results will be attained. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are detailed in the company's filings with the SEC. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Tom for his remarks. Tom?

Thanks, Matt. Good morning. Good morning. I'd first like to say that I hope that you and your families are safe and healthy. I know many of us have been directly impacted by COVID-19, and all of us have been indirectly impacted in some way, which is having an overwhelming effect in shaping everything we are experiencing during this extraordinary period. Seniors with multiple chronic conditions who populate our senior housing property are vulnerable to any virus or infection, and particularly affected by COVID-19. Historically, our operators have implemented time tested protocols for flu and inflection control that have proven to mitigate the impact of prior influenza outbreaks. However, we now know that COVID-19 is not an influenza outbreak, but has become a global pandemic. Further, We have learned our society's ability to slow the spread of COVID-19 rests solely with social distancing measures, given the lack of vaccines or drug therapies. The high level of personal care delivered to senior living residents, combined with the fact that COVID-19 can be spread by asymptomatic residents, family members, and care staffs, has resulted in many challenges for our operators. As Shank and Tim will describe, Our business had a strong start to the year, but starting in mid-March, data began to show that the growing impact of COVID-19 would make this performance not sustainable. In an effort to maintain transparency regarding our business, we have issued regular updates which have provided context for declines in occupancy we started to see in late March that have continued through April. Given the tremendous uncertainty we face from the business model, built to own real estate that enables the health and wellness needs of vulnerable seniors to be met in residential settings. This morning's call will be more focused on steps we are taking to manage this uncertainty. As Tim will discuss, we acted quickly to bolster our liquidity position. We also took numerous steps to help support our senior housing operators, health system, post-acute care, and medical office tenants through this unprecedented period. For example, in March, we started to source and distribute much needed personal protective equipment, or PPE, for many of our operators and tenants who could not access, for example, masks, gloves, gowns, and testing kits. These efforts have helped our operators and tenants to better protect their staffs and residents. This is not what a REIT typically does, but extraordinary measures are often needed in extraordinary times like these. We told you in March that we would use data to guide all decisions regarding our business. Therefore, occupancy declines within our senior housing operating portfolio, a continual increase in operator expenses due to staffing and the cost of PPE, rent deferment requests from medical office tenants, and the impacts of a sharp decline in elective surgeries contributed to our decision to withdraw our 2020 guidance on April 17th. There is much outside of our control, but we are taking steps to manage what is within our control After a successful program to reduce overall G&A spend over the past three years, we believe we can lower G&A expenses this year by approximately $10 to $15 million on an annualized basis by reducing compensation and non-compensation expenses. Additionally, at this point, we believe that it would not be prudent to pay 100% of our dividend until we have more clarity regarding our cash flow for the year. So we've decided to pay 70% of our pre-COVID dividend. This was also a data-driven decision, but it was by no means an easy decision. But we believe this is in the best long-term interests of our shareholders. Virtually overnight, COVID-19 has meaningfully impacted our business and changed our near-term objectives. However, we remain committed to our long-term strategies of being an important platform and real estate partner for constituents across the healthcare continuum to enable them to more effectively achieve the goals of value-based healthcare. Critical to our strategy is the focus on ensuring that the social determinants of health are met for all populations, and especially for vulnerable populations like seniors. Since we began to shelter in place, even the most resilient people have have experienced challenges with basic social determinants such as sourcing groceries, medication, and isolation and loneliness. Residential care concepts like senior housing allow these much-needed activities of daily living to be delivered in consistent, supportive, efficient, and cost-effective ways. This is why we believe in the long-term viability of this business. When COVID-19 is a bad memory, we will still need to meet the health and wellness needs of a rapidly aging population and to reimagine and develop a more sustainable healthcare delivery infrastructure. That being said, we believe we are taking the necessary steps to navigate this uncertain environment and withstand the volatility presented by this pandemic so that we can meet this mission. And with that, I will turn this over to Tim McHugh, who will take us through the financials. Tim.