Greg Silvers
Analyst · KeyBanc
Thank you, Brian, and good morning. Let's begin today with our Q4 and year-end headlines. Our first headline, strategic refocus creates a stronger company. Put simply, we are better positioned for long-term sustainable growth today than we were a year ago. Our decision to sell our charter school portfolio reduced our income volatility, strengthened our overall rent coverage and importantly, positions us to focus on continuing to build the premier Experiential REIT. The Experiential real estate opportunity is fueled by the two largest population segments: baby boomers, who control approximately 70% of disposable income; and millennials, who have a strong orientation towards Experiential lifestyles. Ultimately, this refocus activates our time-tested thesis that people have an innate desire to connect, congregate and to create memorable experiences. As consumer goods become increasingly commoditized through online transactions, simple experiences like watching a movie in a compelling theater environment, hitting a golf ball while enjoying outstanding food at TopGolf or passing friends on the track at Andretti Karting create memories that last a lifetime. Our second headline, Experiential Opportunity, sets the stage for growth. As we've highlighted, our broader target Experiential opportunity includes nine property types and an estimated addressable real estate market of $100 billion or more. We are bullish on the opportunity set for quality Experiential investments. Our intent is to further penetrate these opportunities in 2010. Since 2018, we've made a concerted effort to broaden our traditional investment categories to include the nine categories we've identified as premier Experiential real estate opportunities. During 20191, our acquisitions team successfully invested in most of these categories, with significant investments in theaters, eat and play, ski, Experiential lodging and cultural. As our investment guidance indicates, our growth will continue to diversify our product categories and tenants and will reduce current concentrations over time. We believe our unique focus on the Experiential spectrum will fuel outsized growth for years to come. Three, seizing the opportunity, concerted acquisition process begins paying off. Our primary investing objective is to curate a portfolio of real estate assets that delivers on the following characteristics: one, focused exposure to the Experiential economy; two, consistent and reliable cash flows; three, stable and underlying asset values with durability through various economic cycles; and four, optimize risk return through asset and tenant diversity. To execute our plan, it's critical to meet the operators at their offices, to go to the industry conferences and to establish the relationships necessary to build a quality portfolio. Our long-standing relationships, along with new ones we're creating, continue to grow our industry-leading depth of knowledge in Experiential real estate. Just this month, along with most of our acquisitions team, Greg Zimmerman and I were in Los Angeles for the Sixth Annual Entertainment Experience Evolution. We were impressed with the volume of creative new ideas and it remains clear that baby boomers and millennials continue to prefer experiences to physical goods. We've also met with most of the major casino operators over the past year. At a time when gaming companies are seeking diversified revenue beyond the casino floor, our broad knowledge of Experiential opportunities is highly valued by these operators. And finally, introducing guidance for 2020. Today, we're introducing FFO as adjusted per share guidance of $5.19 to $5.39, which, at the midpoint, represents nearly 4% growth after removing fees related to investments that were sold in 2019. To accomplish this task, we're also introducing investment spending guidance of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion. This increase reflects our bullish outlook for Experiential spending and includes a projected $1 billion investment in a gaming property. As we stated in our press release, we're making significant progress on the definitive agreements for this gaming property. We expect to execute definitive agreements within the coming weeks and to provide additional details at that time. This transaction is expected to close in the second quarter. Additionally, we are proud to continue our commitment of increasing dividends for our common shareholders, and this increase reflects our tenth consecutive annual increase. Now I'll turn the call over to Greg Zimmerman to go through the quarter in greater detail.