Gregory Zimmerman
Analyst · JPMorgan
Thanks, Greg. At the end of the second quarter, our total investments were approximately $6.6 billion with 358 properties in service and 97% leased. During the quarter, our investment spending was $214.9 million. 100% of the spending was on our experiential portfolio and included 3 acquisitions, build-to-suit development and redevelopment projects. Our experiential portfolio comprises 284 properties with 47 operators and accounts for 91% of our total investments, or approximately $6 billion and at the end of the quarter was 96% occupied. Our education portfolio comprises 74 properties with 8 operators, and at the end of the quarter, was 100% occupied. While broadly there is increasing uncertainty and concern around inflation and the possibility of a recession, historically, our value-oriented drive-to destinations have proven to be more resilient in times of recession because they provide a compelling value proposition for families. To date, we have not seen meaningful impact from inflation or gas prices, and our expectation is that this will be the case in the event of an economic slowdown. Now I'll update you on the operating status of our tenants. Q2 total box office was $2.3 billion. Total North American box office for the first half of the year was $3.7 billion. Our high-quality theater portfolio continues to outperform the industry. Second quarter box office was boosted by 4 blockbusters: Top Gun: Maverick; Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness; Jurassic World Dominion; and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. At $650 million in box office, Top Gun is now the highest -- ninth highest grossing North American film of all time. Year-to-date, 12 films have exceeded $100 million in North American box office. And during Q2, 12 films grossed over $40 million in box office, demonstrating a broad return to theaters by consumers. At $1.132 billion, July was the highest grossing month since December 2019, led by Minions: The Rise of Gru; Thor: Love and Thunder; Top Gun; Elvis; and Nope. Three quick data points. Minions: The Rise of Gru, has grossed more than $320 million to date, which shows families with young children still want to see films in the theater. We are encouraged by the performance of Elvis, a traditional biopic with no branded IP, which is reaching multiple generations and has grossed $129 million to date. In each week of July, 4 to 5 titles grossed $10 million per weekend versus only 1 to 3 during the first half of the year, which again demonstrates the broadening recovery. August and September results will be muted with few releases anticipated to generate $100 million. However, Q4 is anchored by 4 major releases: Avatar: The Way of Water; Black Adam with Dwayne Johnson; Shazam!; and the Marvel Universe film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The consumer is returning to the theater. The results demonstrate that all ages of moviegoers still want to see good films on the big screen. As mentioned on our last call and discussed in multiple media reports over the past several months, we don't have a demand issue, we have a content supply issue. Box office numbers will continue to improve as studios increase the number of films flowing to theatrical release. Turning now to an update on our other major customer groups. I would like to point out that in the Q2 supplemental, we moved 3 properties from Experiential Lodging to the category which best categorizes their key demand driver. Because they are both anchored by indoor water parks, we moved Camelback Indoor Waterpark hotel and the Kartrite Resort & Indoor Water Park to Attractions. We moved the Springs Resort in Pagosa Springs, anchored by natural hot springs to fitness and wellness. The recently acquired Villages Vacances Valcartier is reported in Attractions. We continue to see positive trends across all segments of our drive-thru, value-oriented destinations. In Q2, we saw continued good performance across Eat & Play throughout the country with portfolio-wide double-digit year-over-year revenue growth. We are particularly pleased with the performance of our latest top golf locations. As attractions began to reopen for the summer season, we saw revenue growth and performance generally at or above 2021 levels. We are seeing significant year-over-year growth in attendance and revenue at our cultural properties. The attendance and revenue performance at the Springs Resort in Pagosa Springs remained strong. And as a result, we are working on an expansion. Revenues are nearly at pre-pandemic levels at our fitness assets. Q2 begins the ski off-season. As previously mentioned, several of our properties are undergoing capital improvements. Alyeska Resort, the premier Four Season Resort in Alaska, has 76 named ski trails, mountain biking and hiking trails, the Nordic Spa, the Alyeska aerial tram and the award-winning Seven Glaciers restaurant at Top Mount Alyeska. It's benefiting from strong summer travel demand in Alaska. And after the close of the quarter, we closed on an additional $25 million in financing for Alyeska. Revenue growth continues across our experiential lodging portfolio with strong growth in ADR. We are pleased with the performance of our RV resorts. Our Education portfolio continues to perform well with year-over-year increases in revenue, EBITDAre and attendance across the portfolio. Attendance improved 15% in private schools and 19% in early childhood education. Turning to a quick update on capital recycling. We have executed contracts of sale for 4 of our 5 vacant theaters, which we expect to close in either 2022 or 2023. We are discussing the fifth with multiple parties. During the quarter, we announced the acquisition of 2 well-known assets in Canada for $142 million: Villages Vacances Valcartier in Quebec City, Quebec; and the Calypso Waterpark in Ottawa, Ontario. Valcartier an iconic 4-season attraction destination and resort covering 225 acres and offering indoor and outdoor water parks and winter attractions, such as tubing and sledding, over 600 camp ground sites and a variety of food and beverage options. The resort includes the Hotel Valcartier, a 4-star modern hotel with 163 rooms, and the internationally renowned Hotel de Glace ice hotel. Calypso Waterpark is the largest themed water park in Canada, covering 350 acres with 35 water slides, 2 lazy rivers and the largest wave pool in Canada. As noted on the last call, during the second quarter, we also acquired our third RV resort, the Cajun Palms RV Resort in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, between Lafayette and Baton Rouge in a joint venture with Northgate Resorts, a premier RV resort operator. EPR owns 85% and our gross investment exceeds $60 million. The joint venture that holds this property assumed third-party debt of $38.5 million that matures in 2034 and is attractively priced at a blended rate of just over 4%. We're making substantial progress on our investment pipeline. To date in 2022, we have funded $268.3 million for acquisitions, refinancing and new development projects in Attractions, Ski, Eat & Play, Health and Wellness and Experiential Lodging. We expect to fund an additional approximately $24.8 million on announced projects during the balance of 2022. Cap rates are around 8% and should create compelling long-term value. We're maintaining our 2022 investment spending guidance range of $500 million to $700 million. We feel good about our investment progress as we move through 2022. Consumers continue to engage in experiential activities and operators are growing. With our broad unparalleled experience and network and experiential real estate, we're ideally positioned to continue to take advantage of these growth opportunities. Finally, with the continued recovery in the performance of our properties, we will provide coverage metrics on next quarter's earnings call. I now turn it over to Mark for a discussion of the financials.