Greg Silvers
Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open
Now, I’ll get started on today’s headlines before discussing the business in greater detail. First, strong quarter anchored by significant top-line revenue growth. We’re pleased to announce another quarter of record-setting results. As compared to the same quarter previous year, our top-line revenue grew by 20% and FFO as adjusted per share, grew by 6%. These results demonstrate the combination of consistency and growth inherent in our model, which benefits from our non-commodity focus. Second, executing our capital recycling strategy. We are making significant progress on our stated intention of recycling capital through our recent paydown of ski mortgage note with Och-Ziff Real Estate. Based on how we structure the note, this paydown and associated fees implies a cap rate of 6.8%. As we stated, we are increasingly focused on accretive capital recycling and this transaction demonstrates the quality and desirability of our assets in the private market. I’ll provide more color on this shortly. Third, increasing earnings guidance, reaffirming investment spending and disposition guidance. We are happy to announce that we’re increasing our earnings guidance while reaffirming our investment spending and disposition guidance. The increase in earnings is largely driven by the prepayment fee associated with the Och-Ziff mortgage paydown, and we are pleased that the economics of our deal structure will allow all parties to benefit. Fourth, debt management further strengthens balance sheet. Maintaining a strong balance sheet, which supports our business objectives is one of our core principles. As of the end of the quarter, we have no debt maturities until 2022 and subsequent to quarter-end, we successfully issued $400 million in senior unsecured notes. Our capital position continues to benefit from consistent execution of our financial strategy. Mark will provide more detail on this topic. Fifth, enhanced disclosure. We always tried to be transparent and provide disclosures to help you better understand our performance. While we provided rent coverage data in the past, in an effort to enhance our disclosure, each quarter, we will now provide rent coverage at both the company and segment levels. We are hopeful investors find this new reporting structure beneficial. Now, I’ll go into the quarter in more detail. At the end of the first quarter, our investments were $6.8 billion with 400 properties in service that were 99% occupied. During the quarter, investment spending was $108.6 million and our proceeds from dispositions were $10.5 million. Including yesterday’s paydown of our ski loan to Och-Ziff Real Estate, we have completed $231 million of dispositions. Beginning this quarter, we will provide quarterly reporting of our rent coverage for both the overall portfolio and for each of our three primary segments. We always look at rent coverage on a weighted average trailing 12-month basis. As detailed on the slide, our customers reporting cycles vary due to the nature of their industries and their own company-specific practices. Many of our customers are public companies and do not provide any reporting to landlords until after they’ve completed their own public reporting. As such, for most of our revenue base, we were reporting TTM info one quarter in arrears. For example, our entertainment coverage in this quarter will be for the trailing 12-months ended December 31, 2017. For our Recreation segment seasonal businesses, such as ski and attractions and Education segment businesses such as public charter schools and private schools, we update our numbers annually after our customers report their results to us at the end of their operating season. Our portfolio coverage had a 1.74 times coverage ratio. Additionally, our portfolio was maintained the same level of overall coverage level of approximately 1.7 times for the last three consecutive years, which highlights the consistency of the businesses that operate in our properties. We will begin including the slide in our investor presentation, which will be updated and made available on our website after each quarter’s earnings call. Now, I’ll provide an update on our three segments. At quarter-end, our entertainment portfolio included approximately $3 billion of total investments with three properties under development, 167 properties in service and 23 operators. Our occupancy was 99% and our rent coverage was 1.62 times. Investment spending in our Entertainment segment totaled $25.5 million consisting of $7.5 million theater acquisition with the balance being primarily build-to-suit development and redevelopment of megaplex theaters, entertainment retail centers and family entertainment centers. Turning to industry updates. North American box office revenues were up approximately 5.5% versus the prior year through last weekend. The latest installment of Avengers: Infinity War has set the tone for the summer season with a record opening of $257 million and the balance of the summer slight looks strong as well. This performance continues to demonstrate that when the studios produced compelling content, there is no doubt that people want to consume that content in the theater. We continue to be encouraged by the results of our theater tenants converting more of their circuits to high amenity theaters. For example, the three largest public company operators in the U.S. reported year-over-year food and beverage per cap growth ranging from 5% to 9% last year. I would also like to relate to the optimistic tone of last month CinemaCon Conference, which annually brings together all the key players in the movie exhibition industry, including EPR. One highlight of particular note was Disney’s commitment to not materially change the release window for first-run movie theater exhibition, which is exactly the outcome that we expected when this issue bubbled up again last year. At quarter-end, our recreation portfolio included over $2.2 billion of total investments with four properties under development, 86 properties in service and 21 operators. Our occupancy was 100% and our rent coverage was approximately 2.08 times. Investment spending in our Recreation segment totaled approximately $62 million during the first quarter, which included $21.6 million on the Kartrite Waterpark Hotel in the Catskills and $18.1 million of new investments in the fitness space with the balance being primarily of build-to-suit development of golf entertainment complexes and attractions. Yesterday, we received a substantial paydown on our $240 million ski property mortgage loan with affiliates of Och-Ziff Real Estate due to Boeing’s resource purchase of the seven properties they leased from Och-Ziff Real Estate. In exchange for our release of the mortgage of these assets Och-Ziff paid down a $150.8 million of allocated loan principal on the seven properties, along with an additional principal paydown of $24.6 million. Additionally, our loan requires interest to be paid through the end of fourth year of a loan term, which represents approximately $45 million of prepayment fees. In summary, we received a total cash payment of approximately $221 million. The remaining carrying value of the loan is now approximately $74 million and our unlevered IRR is over 29% on this transaction. Och-Ziff may choose to make additional paydowns of the note, but such paydowns are completely at their discretion and subject to the prepayment requirements of our mortgage note. The operators in our ski portfolio have delivered solid results this season and all of our ski customers have fully funded their off-season reserves. Visits in revenue through March, were up 9% and 12%, respectively versus the trailing three-year average, due in large part to significant outperformance at the resorts in the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, the Coldspring allowed many tenants to extend their operating season by a few weeks and make up for days lost to unfavorable weather in the early part of the season. We will provide an update on the full ski season on our next call. As many of you are well aware, as part of our recent bond offering, we updated our Risk Factors to reflect the recent indictment brought against one of our borrowers in certain individuals affiliated with the Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we are very limited what we can say about the situation. However, we can say that our mortgage notes are secured by two very successful Texas water-parks, along with the Park in Kansas City, Kansas and that the annual debt service obligation has historically been covered by the EBITDA from the two Texas parks. At quarter-end, our education portfolio included over $1.4 billion of total investments with eight properties under development, 146 properties in-service and 59 operators. Our occupancy was 98% and our rent coverage was 1.51 times. Investment spending in our Education segment totaled $21.1 million, primarily consisting of $8.4 million for the acquisition of two Early Childhood Education centers with the balance being primarily build-to-suit development and redevelopment of public charter schools, early childhood education centers, and private schools. On the disposition side, we were fully repaid on a $10.5 million of mortgage loans during the quarter with a weighted average rate of 7.4%. In March, we entered into an agreement with our Early Childhood Education tenant, Children’s Learning Adventure. This agreement provides that CLA will make rent payments to EPR. These payments were $750,000 per month for the months of March, April and May and will be $1 million for the months of June and July. Failure to make these payments will result in the immediate termination of the leases. All leases will terminate on July 31 unless terminated earlier for failure of payment. CLA has made the payments for March, April and May. Accordingly, we have updated our portfolio occupancy reporting to reflect all open CLA sites as leased. We believe this agreement allows CLA and their prospective partners, ample time to execute a restructuring in advance of the July 31st termination date of our leases. Please note that the midpoint of our earnings guidance does not reflect rents on these properties after July. If CLA is not able to execute on a restructuring, we will have the ability to regain possession and lease our properties to an alternative operator as several parties have expressed interest in our diversified portfolio of 21 open schools. Moving to our disposition and investment spending guidance. Our disposition guidance remains unchanged at $350 million to $450 million. However, we now know that $220 million – $221 million of this range will be realized from the previously discussed paydown of our ski loan to Och-Ziff Real Estate. We expect the remaining of our – the remainder of our disposition volume to come primarily from our Education segment, which will include the $10.5 million realized during Q1, along with the sale of public charter schools pursuant to tenant purchase options. As Mark will discuss in his comments on our earnings guidance, we are reducing expectations for the dollar volume of charter school tenants exercising their purchase options, which will result in lower expected charter school terminations fees. We will also pursue disposition on opportunistic basis in our Entertainment and Recreation segments to take advantage of the continued strength of the private market. We are reiterating our investment spending guidance range of $400 million to $700 million. We will only grow our investment spending towards the top end of our range if we significantly exceed the top end of our disposition guidance range or if we find attractive investment opportunities that work with our cost of capital. We are not believers in growth for growth’s sake and we will remain disciplined in our underwriting and allocate capital prudently in a manner that drives shareholder value. With that, I’ll turn it over to Mark for a discussion of the financials and then I’ll rejoin you later.