EPR Properties (EPR) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, and welcome to the EPR Properties First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Also, as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I will now hand the call over to Brian Moriarty, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications.

Thank you, operator. Thanks for joining us today for our first quarter 2026 earnings call and webcast. Participants on today's call are Greg Silvers, Chairman and CEO and Ben Fox, Executive Vice President and CIO; and Mark Peterson, Executive Vice President and CFO. I'll start the call by informing you that this call may include forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Ligation Act of 1995, identified by such words as will be, intend, continue, believe, may, expect, hope, anticipate or other such comparable terms. The company's actual financial condition and the results of operations may vary materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Discussion of those factors that would cause results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are contained in the company's SEC filings, including the company's reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. Additionally, this will contain references to certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe are useful in evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release and supplemental information furnished to the SEC under Form 8-K. If you wish to follow along, today's earnings release, supplemental and earnings call presentation are all available on the Investor center page of the company's website, www.eprkc.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Greg Silvers.

Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter of 2026 Earnings Call and Webcast. In previous quarters, we've discussed our focus on accelerating growth. For the quarter, we delivered a 5.9% increase in FFO as adjusted per share versus the prior year and have established strong momentum as we accelerate on our investment spending for the year. The centerpiece of our investments was our announced acquisition of a Seven Park regional portfolio from Six Flags. This $315 million portfolio is our largest acquisition in the post-COVID era and we're pleased to own parks that have demonstrated success in the past and offer significant opportunities for the future. These properties comprise more than 1,600 acres across 6 states and Canada, include 418 attractions and have established guest bases that draw approximately 4.5 million visitors annually. We are delighted to be partnering with proven operators Enchanted Parks who operate the U.S. parks and La Ronde operations to operate La Ronde in Montreal. These parks have become staples in their communities and have established multigenerational patronage by delivering fun, excitement and lasting memories. Supporting both the stability of our portfolio and our confidence in our investment outlook is the sustained growth in consumer spending in the experience economy. As we highlight in our investor presentation, personal consumption expenditures in most of the categories we invest in have been growing for many years and most recently increased 7% from 2024 to 2025. In an environment with a variety of macroeconomic cost currents, our overall portfolio coverage remains stable and resilient with most tenants reporting steady or improving results. We're pleased to see box office running ahead of last year, supported by a variety of genres and titles. Additionally, Fitness & Wellness continued to demonstrate resilience as many consumers view this category as an essential part of their lifestyle. This reordering of priorities where consumers increasingly treat Fitness & Wellness as protected nondiscretionary spending reinforces the durability of the segment and supports the long-term thesis behind our investments in this category. Lastly, I'm pleased to report that we're increasing both our investment spending and earnings guidance. Last year, we delivered 5.1% growth in FFO as adjusted per share, with today's update, the midpoint of our 2026 guidance for FFO as adjusted per share represents 6.5% growth. This significant growth reflects the strength of our investments to date, our future pipeline, the quality of our portfolio and the momentum we've established. As our portfolio continues to expand and diversify, we anticipate additional opportunities to capitalize on the experiential movement and strengthen our competitive advantage. Now I'm going to turn over the call to Ben Fox, who is joining us for his first call as CIO. We look forward to his leadership and contributions in the coming years. Ben, please take it from here.

Thank you, Greg. I appreciate that. I am very pleased with the positive momentum we have demonstrated to date with our investment activity. In the first quarter, we completed $51.3 million of investments, including the previously announced acquisition of a VITAL Climbing Gym located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as well as already committed development capital. Subsequent to quarter end, we completed the acquisition of 6 properties from Six Flags Entertainment representing the substantial majority of this $315 million 7 property transaction. We expect the remaining property, La Ronde located in Canada to close in Q2. This is a notable investment, which further diversifies the portfolio alongside best-in-class operators, and it underscores the value proposition we are uniquely positioned to deliver. Our deep roster of client relationships enabled us to provide Six Flags with a one-stop solution as it sought to reduce its operating footprint. By bringing trusted, proven operating partners to the table, we helped Six Flags achieve its objectives while acquiring irreplaceable real estate. In addition to these highlighted investments, as of March 31, we expect approximately $71 million in additional investment for existing experiential development and redevelopment projects, substantially all of which should fund over the balance of this year. Given the acceleration in our investment velocity, we're pleased to increase our investment guidance to $500 million to $600 million, which represents our highest investment expectation since COVID. This increase is reflective of the depth and breadth of opportunities we're seeing across all our verticals. We expect investment activity for 2026 to be weighted more towards acquisitions than development. We also expect to continue employing convertible or other similar mortgage structures selectively where it makes sense for both us and our clients. Significantly, this increase in investment cadence demonstrates the depth and quality of relationships our investments team has created allowing us to generate attractive proprietary deal flow across the experience economy. Before turning to the portfolio update, I want to spend a minute discussing the competitive landscape and pricing. Although the net lease sector is generally a competitive market, we're seeing cap rates holding steady for the investments we target. Again, this is reflective of the unique relationships we have in the insights that our underwriting and asset management teams provide. If anything, the continued volatility in the capital markets is providing an uplift in both the number of opportunities we're seeing and the corresponding conversion ratio for turning these opportunities into closed investments. Turning now to an update on the portfolio. At the end of the quarter, our portfolio represented $7.1 billion of gross investment value, consisting of 335 properties, which were 99% leased or operated. 94% of this value reflects investments across experiential assets. These 280 properties are operated by 54 clients and continue to be 99% leased or operated. The remaining 6% of the portfolio represents our Education segment comprised of 55 properties leased by 5 operators. At the end of the quarter, these properties were 100% leased. Importantly, the portfolio remains very healthy with 2x unit level rent coverage. This coverage demonstrates the resiliency that our portfolio diversification creates. Moreover, it's also reflective of resilient consumer spending patterns and the continued prioritization of experiences. Notably, within our Theater segment, the first quarter saw a 25% increase in North American box office grows, benefiting from an increase in both attendance and the number of films released. The current film slate sets the rest of the year up favorably compared to last year. Several recent announcements have continued to remove uncertainty while demonstrating the enduring power of theatrical exhibition. First, both the Writers & Screen Actors' Guilds have reached new 4-year agreements, removing any concern of strikes for the foreseeable future. Second, Amazon MGM has announced a commitment to 15 theatrical releases in 2027, with a standard theatrical window of 45 days. Following this move, Universal reversed course on its previous 17-day window, now committing to the standard window of at least 45 days. And most recently, Netflix announced on Friday that the upcoming release of Narnia, which initially was slated for a 2-week release exclusively in IMAX will be getting a wide release in both IMAX and standard formats for a 49-day theatrical window before moving to streaming. These moves reflect Studio's recognition that theatrical releases serve a dual purpose, generating box office economics upfront while meaningfully enhancing the value of films, streaming window downstream. Within the Eat & Play segment, our operators performed in line with the prior year, seeing a small amount of attendance volatility, offset by higher average spending per visit. Geographic diversification produced incremental gains in our Ski portfolio with significant outperformance in the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast properties more than offsetting the historically poor snowfall across the Western United States. Our Fitness & Wellness segment continues to deliver solid performance and we're continuing to see incremental gains at some of our recently opened properties. Lastly, our Education portfolio continues to perform well and coverage in this segment remains strong. Touching upon dispositions, the asset management team has done an outstanding job over the past several years on risk management and on resolving vacancies. Although dispositions targeting proactive risk management, will remain a core element of our asset management strategy. The emphasis over the near term will be on generating accretive proceeds through sales of noncore assets. Accordingly, we are increasing our disposition guidance by $25 million on the lower and upper bounds to a new range of $50 million to $100 million. In summary, our portfolio continues to be resilient and we remain enthusiastic about the investment landscape. We are encouraged by the depth of our investment pipeline at this point in the year and have confidence in our revised investment guidance. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark for a review of our financial performance.

Thank you, Ben. Today, I will discuss our strong financial performance for the first quarter, provide an update on our balance sheet and close by discussing the increases to our earnings and investment spending guidance for the year. FFO as adjusted for the quarter was $1.26 per share versus $1.19 in the prior year an increase of 5.9%. And AFFO for the quarter was $1.29 per share compared to $1.21 in the prior year, an increase of 6.6%. Before I walk through the key variances, I want to explain 2 items excluded from FFO as adjusted and AFFO. First, during the quarter, we exercised our purchase option to convert a $70 million mortgage note receivable secured by an experiential lodging property into a wholly owned rental property subject to a long-term triple net lease. At the time of the conversion, we recognized a $1 million gain on real estate transactions and the $1.3 million benefit for credit losses. Second, benefit for credit losses was $5.6 million for the quarter, and related to the conversion I just discussed as well as changes to our expected -- our current expected credit losses in our third-party model based on improvements to both property level performance and certain relevant economic conditions. Now moving to the key variances. Total revenue for the quarter was $181.3 million versus $175 million in the prior year, an increase of $6.3 million. This increase was mostly due to the impact of investment spending as well as rent and interest bumps. This was partially offset by dispositions and a decrease in percentage rents and participating interest, which was $2.5 million for the quarter versus $5.1 million in the prior year. This decrease was mostly due to out-of-period percentage rent and participating interest totaling $2.9 million recognized in the first quarter of 2025. Both other income and other expense relate primarily to our consolidated operating properties, including the Kartrite Hotel and Indoor Water Park and our 4 operating theaters. The decrease in other income and other expense versus prior year is due primarily to the sale of 2 operating theater properties in the first quarter of 2025. On the expense side, interest expense net increased by $1.7 million due to an increase in average borrowings and a decrease in capitalized interest versus the prior year. Turning to the next slide. I'll review some of the company's key credit ratios. As you can see, our coverage ratios continue to be very strong with fixed charge coverage at 3.3x in both interest and debt service coverage ratios at 3.9x. Our pro forma net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDAre was 4.8x at quarter end, which is below the low end of our targeted range of 5 to 5.6x. Pro forma net debt is calculated by subtracting from net debt. The estimated net proceeds from the forward sales agreement we executed during the quarter that I will discuss shortly. Additionally, our pro forma net debt to gross assets was 39% on a book basis at quarter end, and our common dividend continues to be very well covered with an AFFO payout ratio of 70% for the first quarter. Now let's move to our capital market activities and balance sheet, which is in great shape to support our continued growth. At quarter end, we had consolidated debt of $2.9 billion, of which all is either fixed rate debt or debt that has been fixed through interest rate swaps with an overall blended coupon of approximately 4.4%. Our liquidity position remains strong with $68.5 million of cash on hand at quarter end and no balance drawn on our $1 billion revolver. Additionally, in March, we were pleased to enter into a forward sales agreement under our ATM program to sell an aggregate 797,422 common shares for initial gross proceeds of $47.5 million or an average sale price of $59.52 per share. We can settle the outstanding shares anytime before March 1, 2027 for the gross proceeds subject to various adjustments. As of today, we have not settled any of these shares. We are increasing our 2026 FFO as adjusted per share guidance to a range of $5.37 to $5.53 from a range of $5.28 to $5.48, representing an increase versus the prior year of 6.5% at the midpoint. We expect a similar percentage increase in AFFO per share. We are also increasing our 2026 guidance for investment spending to a range of $500 million to $600 million from a range of $400 million to $500 million and increasing disposition proceeds to a range of $50 million to $100 million from a range of $25 million to $75 million. We are confirming our percentage rent and participating interest income guidance of $18.5 million to $22.5 million which continues to be very heavily weighted to the back half of the year. We are also confirming our G&A expense guidance of $56 million to $59 million and the guidance for our consolidated operating properties, which is provided by giving a range for other income and other expense. Guidance details can be found on Page 23 of our supplemental. Finally, we were pleased to have increased our monthly common dividend by 5.1% to $3.72 per share annualized which began with the dividend payable April 15 to shareholders of record as of March 31. We expect our 2026 dividend to be well covered with an AFFO payout ratio below 70% based on the midpoint of guidance. Now with that, I'll turn it back over to Greg for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Mark. As discussed today, both our investments and earnings are accelerating and reflect the resiliency and opportunity of our experiential focus. We've also demonstrated our ability to utilize multiple sources of capital to fuel this growth with the initial execution of our ATM program, along with opportunistically recycling capital with planned asset sales. All of these positives reinforce our conviction that EPR's unique platform and asset classes position us to deliver outsized shareholder returns. With that, operator, why don't we open it up for questions?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Jana Galan with BofA.

Congrats on a really nice first quarter. Mark, for the increase in AFFO guidance, can you help parse out how much came from a slightly better first quarter? And then how much you're seeing from the acceleration in investment activity? Or is it maybe also better yields on that investment activity?

Yes, we did -- we were a little better for the quarter, about $0.01 or $0.02. But then as you look forward, really, the increase is due to a couple of things. One, obviously, we raised our investment spending and paid for that via the capital raise, but there was probably $0.01 out of that increased guidance. And then I think more broadly, we got a benefit from being fairly conservative with respect to the Six Flags transaction at the end of the year because we weren't sure -- for sure it would close and when exactly it would close. So I think the ultimate outcome of that was better than anticipated. And I think the remaining investments, not just the increase for the year, but the remaining investments are coming in a little bit sooner than planned and at a better cap rate. The last thing I'll mention that impacted our FFOAA guidance was the Margaritaville conversion to a -- from a note to a lease. We got incremental straight-line rent from that, and that was probably a little under $0.02 in terms of straight-line benefit converting from a mortgage to now a 20-year lease with escalators that had some straight-line impact.

And then maybe just one for Ben, on the strategy to kind of employ more convertible or other mortgage structures as a way to invest in assets. Just curious, is kind of the first quarter purchase option that you guys exercised kind of a key example of what this would look like?

Yes. Jana, that's exactly right. Really, the mortgages that we use, as I mentioned, are pathways to real estate ownership. And so that conversion of the Margaritaville is exactly representative of the types of structures we enter into. And so as opportunities present themselves, we will convert those and use those selectively.

Our next question will come from Bennett Rose with Citi.

I just wanted to follow up on that on these convertible mortgage opportunities. Could you maybe just talk a little bit about sort of how many you have and kind of what that could look like over the next couple of years as we choose to go down that path?

Yes. It's a good question. And really, if you look at our mortgage book, the majority of those, probably more than 80% are convertible, right? So what we're highlighting here is with this transaction in Margaritaville, that is just an example of the opportunities that sit within the existing portfolio as well as the types of structures that you could see us enter into in the upcoming quarters and years.

Okay. And then I just wanted to ask you on your -- the acquisition of theme parks from Six Flags, do you guys see them, I guess, as a potential partner going forward? Is it your sense that Six Flags may want to shed more what they would consider noncore assets? And is that something you would be willing to lean into more at this juncture?

Smedes, it's Greg. I think -- again, I think, clearly, we've demonstrated a partnership with them. So we'll definitely take a look at that. I think they're exploring. And I think real estate solutions are being explored across the board in the attraction space. And I think our team has demonstrated our ability to be a market leader in that space, whether that's with Six Flags or with other participants. So I think us carving out our leadership position will ultimately probably create more opportunities, which I think we think we find very attractive.

Our next question comes from Upal Rana with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Just on the Six Flags transaction, could you walk through the strategy behind...

We kind of cut you off, but I think you're saying what was the strategy? So I think our put was, again, long term, we look at these as incredibly stable assets. If you look over time, that these are -- they're market-dominant that you just cannot create has been reported. These assets were -- have had multibillion dollars spent on them that we can buy very attractively, which we think create long-term stability. They're very much part of the communities and where they exist. So we feel like this is a really strong anchors to an experiential portfolio. I think, again, as we said, there's really been no new parks built in decades. So we feel the durability and the resilience of these are quite good. And we will continue, as I said, to explore opportunities.

Okay. Great. That was helpful. And then maybe in your prepared remarks, you mentioned you're encouraged by your pipeline that you're seeing. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that and what types of deals you're seeing and any kind of sizes?

I'll let Ben add a little bit to this, but I think what we're encouraged is kind of what I talked about in the beginning. Experiential spending continues to accelerate. And we continue to see multiple reports about how people are valuing experiences over things and continuing to prioritize those. So again, whether it's Attractions, Fitness, Eat & Play, across the board, we're seeing strength. And so therefore, I think we would say that almost all of our categories, as we said, we're not growing theaters, but all of our categories, our pipeline of opportunities is expanding, but I'll let Ben if you want to add anything.

I think that's exactly right. It really is across the board. And just the ability to get a lot of our relationships to the table is increasing, and there's a general increased willingness to transact and derisk capital markets exposure.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Justin Haasbeek with UBS.

This is Justin on for Michael Goldsmith. Are you seeing any cap rate compression or increased competition in your top 3 acquisition segments of Fitness & Wellness, Attractions and Eat & Play? And are those still your top 3 in terms of acquisition focus?

I would say, yes. I mean, again, especially on our flow business, I mean, clearly, with what we did with Attractions this year, that was a big anchor transaction, but our flow business, I think those are still the top. And as Ben commented in his opening comments, I think our cap rates remain stable. I think, again, our position as kind of a leading market participant here makes us get the first call usually on these type of assets. So I think there's always going to be competition. But again, everyone in this space knows who we are, and we're going to get that call. So I think that bodes well for us continuing to grow that pipeline more and more.

Okay. Great. And does the strong box office performance in the first quarter here, does that change how you think about your exposure? And has there been any private market interest in theaters? Has that changed at all?

There's -- again, I -- first of all, I should answer the first one. I don't think it's changed our interest in the sense that we still believe that increasing our diversity is a strategic objective of ours. I think there's no doubt that there continues to be getting an improving interest in the theater space as this continues, especially with some of the things that Ben mentioned in his comments, you've got the studios now kind of embracing much more on a theatrical forward kind of direction whether it's embracing the windows, whether that's Netflix now starting to use theatrical. So I think there's a lot more positive feeling about it. So we're seeing more interest in there. We'll see if that plays out to a ability for us to transact. But there's no doubt that we're getting more inbound calls on our portfolio.

Our next question will come from Michael Carroll with RBC Capital Markets.

Greg, can you talk a little bit about the current macro uncertainty and how that has impacted the experiential space? I guess, mainly, have you received any calls from potential sellers looking to further derisk, I guess, their company and maybe doing a deal with you just given the potential volatility that could be caused in the capital markets?

I think, as Ben said, we're getting inbound calls of people who are -- again, I think the idea of it used to be at the beginning or the end of last year, wait until rates improve. And now I think that volatility in that market has helped in that sense. I think though, the underlying the thing that's got us is the underlying support and resiliency of the activities. I mean as we said, our coverage remains very strong against this backdrop. So I think it gives us confidence to move forward that the consumer is still there. And I think there is, as Ben noted, some people who on the capital side are looking at saying, Okay, it doesn't look like rates are going materially down, and there is a risk with where we're at of them going up. So let's see if we can lock in transactions. But Ben, I don't know if that's consistent.

That's very consistent with what we're seeing.

Okay. And then on the disposition side, I know that you modestly increased your target. I mean should we think about those sales still mainly be coming from the early education segment? Is that the focus? Or is there other sales outside of that, you can look at?

I think it's going to -- you're going to see that probably will be a bulk of that. I think you will also see us, as I mentioned earlier, hopefully capitalize on some really interesting opportunities on our theater side to sell some assets, so that we can show some real kind of interest in that. So -- but we'll have to go from there.

Okay. And then on the theater side, if you sell assets, I mean, can you -- I'm assuming you can't do much out of AMC given that's now in a master lease, right, unless you do a bigger JV. So should we think about those potential sales being with smaller operators.

One-offs or things offs and other opportunities there, but you're exactly correct. It will not -- probably not be out of the master lease.

There are no more questions. So I will now turn the call back over to Greg Silvers, Chairman and CEO, for any closing remarks.

Thank you, guys. I appreciate the time and attention today. We look forward to talking to you as we go through the rest of the year and appreciate your interest. Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you for joining EPR Properties First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.