Welltower Inc.

Thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Welltower first quarter 2026 earnings conference call and webcast. 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. In order to ensure full participation, we ask that you limit your questions to one and re-queue with any follow-ups. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt McQueen, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel. The floor is yours.

Thank you 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 Welltower 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 that 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 Sean for his remarks.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. As usual, I'll review business trends and our capital allocation priorities, and the team will follow the usual cadence. We started the year on a strong note with the business continuing to fire on all cylinders. While the heightened geopolitical tension and macroeconomic volatility dominated the headlines, our niche, need-based, and private-pay rental housing business did not miss a beat. Driven by a combination of strong organic growth and acquisition activity, our total revenue for the quarter increased 38% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA was up 36%. Most importantly, we delivered another quarter of strong bottom-line part-share growth, with FFO part-share increasing 23% while we continue to deleverage our balance sheet and invest in people and systems. Our balance sheet provides us with substantial firepower and flexibility. These results exceed our already high expectation coming into the year, enabling us to raise the midpoint of our full year FFO per share guidance by 11 cents to $6.28. The pronounced mix shift of our portfolio resulting from a transformative 2025 capital allocation activity has already began to manifest itself. During the first quarter of this year, we reported 16.4% total portfolio same store net operating income growth, by far the highest in our history. This is largely a function of combined strength from a senior housing operating portfolio, which now comprises 74% of our same store ROI, up from 57% first quarter of last year. This is the first time in history that annualized in-place NOI from a shop portfolio exceeded $3 billion. During the first quarter, U.S. outperformed from an occupancy perspective with nearly 400 basis points of year-over-year growth. On the other hand, Canada, with higher overall occupancy levels than U.S. and U.K., posted growth closer to 300 basis points, but generated report growth of 6%, giving you some perspective of the art of the possible as our overall portfolio leases up. Ultimately, all three regions made strong contributions, and we achieved nearly 10% organic revenue growth in the quarter. And the subdued expense growth driven by scaling and the world-wide business system, same-store NOI growth increased 22%, marking 14th consecutive quarter in which shop growth exceeded 20%. Drilling a bit farther, the growth of Repor, The unit revenue continued to exceed export or unit expenses by a wide margin, resulting in another quarter of significant operating margin expansion of 320 basis points. Perhaps the most remarkable stat of the quarter was the circa 20% NY growth generated by the communities with 95% plus occupancy. While I consider our recent senior housing results to be somewhat satisfactory, I'm convinced that the best years of this business are squarely in front of us. With the total senior housing portfolio occupancy at 87%, there is significant capacity in the system for us to drive multiple years of outsized occupancy gains, along with continued pricing opportunities. And with the operating leverage inherent in our high fixed cost business, margins should continue to drift higher. But as we have talked about during our most recent calls, what we remain most excited about and our most meaningful opportunity to drive bottom line growth is through the expanded role that technology, data and innovation will play in our business with the ultimate goal of improving the experience of our customers and site-level employees. The structural change driven by the Welter business system should continue to impact virtually every revenue and expense line item, driving the margins even higher. This digital transformation, which we are striving for, coupled with in-place above-market compensation and benefits for our site-level employees, should result in lower turnover and lead happier customers. As I mentioned last quarter, Munger Grant is a clear example of how we are putting these ideas into action. As I've written extensively in my annual letter, which came out a few weeks ago, we have built a system of scaled economy shared amongst all participants in the ecosystem. While shareholders will certainly benefit as we extend the duration of our growth, we want our operating partners, site-level employees, residents, and their families to to benefit meaningfully as well. This is the only way to build and sustain a network effect in a complex adaptive system like ours. Turning to investment activity, Almost exactly a year after Liberation Day, the conflict in Middle East has led to another period of significant capital markets volatility, creating a dynamic similar to that of last year. Recently, a spike in interest rates and gapping out of spreads has resulted in retrading of deals and various parties walking away from their newfound love of senior housing. It is almost comical to see how predictable tourist capital's behavior can be. Many of our counterparties have seen this movie before and opted to bypass the theater and instead result transacting with us directly in privately negotiated deals. However, some of the first time sellers have learned the hard way that five to six months timeline required to reach a signed definitive agreement in real estate is an eternity in today's world. We behave exactly how we always have, running a first-class business in a first-class way and never walking from a handshake. Over the last 60 days, we have been busier than ever, generating an incredible amount of activity, which Nikhil will describe to you shortly. But to provide some additional context, we completed $3.2 billion of investments during the quarter, and have closed or under contract to close an additional $7.3 billion of investments. Our investment pipeline remain robust, visible and actionable in all three of our regions. In addition, often overlooked is our disposition activity, which totaled nearly $3 billion in the quarter as we continue to rotate capital into opportunities, which we believe will both amplify and extend the revenue growth curve farther into the future. Overall, we have completed $11 billion of dispositions since the beginning of 2025, which has been meaningfully dilutive to our 2026 earnings per share. However, calling our portfolio off lower growth assets, we have meaningfully extended our growth curve in outer years. For example, The assets we acquired in fourth quarter of last year are expected to deliver 10x level of growth in 2026 than the assets we have sold. Not selling this unprecedented volume of assets would have been easier and frankly more fun as 2026 FFO per share would have been meaningfully higher. But we always have and always will choose hard over easy and long term over short term. We have a long and hard year of execution in front of us, but our team has never been more fired up as it is today. We shall see what the market gives us in this summer leasing season. With that, I'll pass it over to John.