Jerry Earnest
Analyst · Rob Stevenson from Janney. Your line is open, sir
Thank you, Greg. Our investment spending during the second quarter of 2017 was very strong in part due to the closing of the CNL Lifestyle Properties transaction, but also as a result of continued strong deal flow across all three investment segments. The CNL Lifestyle Properties transaction investment spending totaled $731 million with the balance of the investment spending consisting of $205 million or total of $936 million spending for the second quarter. And bringing year-to-date spending to $1.2 billion. The strong spending pays reflect the depth of business demand by our tenants and the strong execution across all our investment segments. As such I am pleased to announce that we anticipate this momentum continuing and we are raising the midpoint of our 2017 investment guidance by $150 million to a range of $1.45 to $1.5 billion. As Greg noted in his headlines, box office revenue is stable. However, our forecast for the year is not quarter-to-quarter estimate rather where we believe it will end the year. This year is heavily weighted for the holiday season with the latest installment of the Marvel franchise Thor, the DC offering Justice League and a next installment of the Star Wars franchise. We still believe the 2017 will be essentially flat to 2016, a record breaking year. Also please note the slight variation of performance have little impact on our rent coverage. Overall, the business is healthy and continues to demonstrate that the out-of- home entertainment experience offered by exhibition tenant is valued by consumers. In its headlines Greg mentioned the concerns regarding premium video on demand. I think it is important to note that our exhibition partners are investing millions of dollars to reinvent and enhance the out-of-home movie experience for consumers through conversion to the high amenity theater format. The overwhelming consumer demand for these theaters and their enhanced performance demonstrate the success of this investment. Our exhibition operators have seen substantially increased revenue generation with this format. This renovation has also benefited EPR not only in terms of expanding a property lease term but also from a performance standpoint. As we noted in year end call, for renovated theaters that have been opened for a full year, we've seen over a 40% improvement in total theater revenues, which has translated into higher coverage and greater opportunities for percentage rent. Further, in addition to the conversion of theaters in our existing portfolio, the opportunity to purchase additional theaters for conversion to the high amenity format has continued to expand our theater acquisition opportunities. For the second quarter, investment spending in our entertainment segment totaled $84.1 million, consisting primarily of build-to-suit development, redevelopment and acquisitions of megaplex theaters, entertainment retail centers and family entertainment centers. In summary, at the end of the second quarter the company had over $2.7 billion invested in the entertainment segment with six properties under development, 159 properties in service and 22 operators. In the recreation segment during the second quarter, we significantly expanded our portfolio of ski properties and attraction with casino lifestyle properties transaction. In addition, we have continued the successful expansion of our portfolio of high performing Topgolf properties. We are excited with the additional diversification at the Northstar ski property brings to our collection of ski properties; performance for all of our ski properties has been strong on a year-over-year basis. For the trailing 12 months period to the end of April, revenues were up 17%, fueled by double digit tenant's growth and our overall lease coverage is an excess of 2x. The company also provided a $251 million five year 8.5% secured loan to OZRE real estate for its purchase of 14 CNL Lifestyle ski properties valued at $374.5 million. The overall debt service coverage on the loan based on the underlying rental income is approximately 2.5x. We are pleased to report that our traction portfolio including the CNL Properties are performing as expected. Even as we transition to a new operator on several properties. While these results are promising, it remains early in the seasons and we'll have a clear picture on our third quarter call. During the second quarter, our Topgolf properties continue to enjoy strong consumer acceptance and maintain their robust performance with strong overall lease coverage. As the Topgolf rollout continues in numerous new cities, we are pleased with the rapid ramp up and reliable performance of our investments. At the end of the second quarter, we had four Topgolf properties under construction with 27 open and operating properties. Recreation spending including the CNL Lifestyle Properties transaction totaled $775.6 million during the second quarter with $24.3 million spending on Topgolf properties under construction and $18.9 million in waterpark spending including Adelaar. In summary, at the end of the second quarter, the company had over $2 billion invested in recreation segment with five properties under development, 78 properties in service and 19 operators. In our education segment, all three of our education property types which include public charter schools, early childhood education centers and private school set us for the continued consumer demand which translates into opportunities for us. As mentioned previously, our performance continues to demonstrate our extensive operator relationships, combined with our industry knowledge and build-to-suit program provide us with a competitive advantage financing the growing need for high quality education facilities. As we've discussed on previous calls, we remain committed to increasing the tenant diversity of our public charter school portfolio and reducing our concentration of Imagine School. As part of this effort, we've engaged various brokers to help in this process. Part of the feedback that we've received to this process was a need for additional lease term on these assets. To facilitate this change we entered into an agreement with Imagine to restructure the leases on six properties in exchange for lowering existing annual cash payments by approximately $500,000 and restructuring remaining lease terms to 10 years, Imagine agreed that upon the sale of these properties the new buyers would have the right to enter into a new 20 years lease. These were two benefits of this transaction. First, we believe that it will add disposition of these assets and second a changes resulted in the lease structure no longer been classified as a direct financing lease. This change however did result in a non cash impairment charge which Mark will discuss in greater detail in his comments. During the second quarter, investment spending in our education segment totaled $76.3 million, primarily consisting of build-to-suit development, redevelop and acquisition of public charter schools, early childhood education center and private school. In summary, at the end of the second quarter, the company had over $1.4 billion invested in the education segment with 16 properties under development and 140 properties in service and 61 operators. Montreign Resort Casino by Empire Resort continues to have steady construction progress to open on and before March 31, 2018. As we noted previously, Montreign Resort Casino announced that it had entered into a license agreement to be rebranded as a Resorts World property which we believe will strengthen Montreign Casino and ultimately its performance. Construction of a waterpark hotel located at the Adelaar casino and resort development continued during the second quarter. We invested approximately $2.7 million on this development during the quarter. We presently anticipate opening a waterpark hotel property in the first half of 2019. In terms of capital recycling during the second quarter, in addition to the five small family entertainment centers from CNL transaction we sold eight other properties for total of $112.4 million. Four properties were sold in the education segment consisting of three charter schools and one early childhood education facility. Two of the charter schools exercised their lease termination by adoptions and the third charter school is sold through a third party. The other properties consisted primarily of one Megaplex Theater and one entertainment retail center anchored by Megaplex Theater. Net gains on the sale of these properties totaled $25.5 million. As we've discussed we view dispositions as both offensive and defensive opportunities. Where the charter school buyer who receive a significant premium leading to the exercise of lease termination buyout before the entertainment properties we aware that both of these properties will be subjected to new competitive pressures and use this opportunity to sell weaker properties at nice gains. We have a number of pending disposition transaction which we anticipate closing during the balance of the year. Our disposition guidance is $175 million to $250 million for 2017. However, as Greg mentioned there is a possibility of a transaction involving an early childhood education tenant and these numbers do not anticipate better rent. Property occupancy for all our properties remains strong at 99%. In summary, we are extremely well positioned with our focus on the experienced economy. Our momentum and outlook remain very strong as we continue to achieve significant transaction flow based on our focused and disciplined strategy. And to repeat, we are raising our 2017 investment spending guidance to $1.45 billion to $1.5 billion. With that I'll turn it over to Mark for discussion of financial and I'll join you for questions.