EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript October 26, 2023

Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2023 EPR Properties Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Brian Moriarty, Vice President of Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Brian Moriarty: Okay, thank you Victor. Thanks for joining us today for our third quarter 2023 earnings call and webcast. Participants on today’s call are Greg Silvers, Chairman and CEO; Greg Zimmerman, Executive Vice President and CIO; and Mark Peterson, Executive Vice President and CFO. We’ll start the call by informing you that this call may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995, identified by such words as will be intend, continue, believe, may, expect, hope, anticipate or other 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 could cause results to differ materially from those 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 call 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.

Gregory Silvers: Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today’s third quarter 2023 earnings call and webcast. I’m happy to report another strong quarter highlighted by top line revenue growth of approximately 70% and FFO as adjusted per share growth of approximately 27% versus the same quarter of prior year. These results were driven by continued strong results in our experiential properties along with significant deferral collection. With these results as a backdrop, we are pleased to announce that we are increasing our 2023 earnings guidance. A few matters on tenant health. As we previously announced, during the quarter, we significantly enhanced our theater portfolio as we entered into a comprehensive restructuring agreement with Regal, anchored by a new master lease.

Additionally, Southern Theaters, our fourth largest theater tenant, was acquired by Santikos Entertainment, who paid the full remaining deferred rent owed by Southern Theaters. While the actor strike is still ongoing, resolution of the writer strike was an important milestone as theatrical exhibition continues its strong recovery. As of last weekend, year-to-date box office has already surpassed 2022 total box office revenues. As we emphasized previously, compelling content translates into theater attendance. Most recently, the Barbenheimer event highlighted the power of theatrical exhibition as it brought in cohorts from diverse age and gender demographics. Additionally, it brought back many who hadn’t been to the theater in years. With the Taylor Swift ERAS Tour movie, we’re seeing the true power of theatrical experience combined with highly engaging content.

This is an excellent example of alternative content brought to life in a theatrical environment. Many in the industry are seeing the success of this movie as an indicator of opportunities for other genres and performers to bring their content to this entertainment platform. Our non-theater portfolio continues to demonstrate strength and our coverage remains strong, with many tenants seeing increases in both attendance and revenue. While the macro environment remains challenging for REITs broadly, consumers continue to value experiences and their spending on these activities remains resilient. Accordingly, we’re confident in our plan and our ability to identify and capitalize on compelling opportunities. With a committed development and redevelopment pipeline of approximately $235 million to be funded over the next two years, with $173 million of cash on hand and no borrowings on our $1 billion unsecured revolving credit facility, we are well positioned to continue our growth without having to issue equity.

Our current value proposition is strong with a solid balance sheet, well-covered dividend, and significant near-term catalysts with a recovering box office and the potential to realize meaningful percentage rent. Additionally, we are the only diversified REIT focusing on the highly resilient experiential economy. We specialize in experiential real estate and as such have developed unique industry knowledge in the segments we target for growth. This allows us to develop long-term relationships and provides the ability to be selective in the spaces in which we invest. As we continue to execute our plan, we anticipate an improvement in our cost of capital, which should allow us to achieve increased levels of growth. Now I’ll turn it over to Greg Zimmerman for more details on the quarter.

Gregory Zimmerman: Thanks, Greg. At the end of the quarter, our total investments were approximately $6.7 billion with 359 properties in service and 99% leased. Beginning this quarter, we will exclude properties we intend to sell from our leasing occupancy statistics. During the quarter, our investment spending was $36.8 million bringing our total investment spending for the nine months ending on September 30th to $135.5 million. 100% of the spending was in our experiential portfolio and included continued funding for experiential build-to-suit development projects and redevelopment projects commenced in 2022 and 2023. Our experiential portfolio comprises 288 properties with 51 operators and accounts for 92% of our total investments or approximately $6.2 billion.

And at the end of the quarter was 99% occupied. Our education portfolio comprises 71 properties with eight operators and at the end of the quarter was 100% occupied. Turning to coverage, the most recent data provided is based on a June trailing 12-month period. Overall portfolio coverage for the trailing 12 months continues to be strong at two times. Coverage for the non-theater portion of our portfolio is 2.6 times. Coverage for the theaters is 1.4 times with box office for the 12 months ending June 30th at $8.1 billion. By way of comparison, if the restructured Regal deal which I’ll describe in more detail in a moment had been in place for the trailing 12 months ending June 30th, theater coverage would be 1.5 times and overall coverage would be 2.1 times.

Beginning next quarter, to provide a more accurate view of coverage, we will report theater coverage as if the restructured Regal deal was in place for the full trailing 12-months. Finally, with trailing 12-month box office gross through September 30th at $8.8 billion, we anticipate theater coverage is returning to our pre-pandemic range. Now I will update you on the operating status of our tenants. As previously reported, we entered into a comprehensive restructuring agreement with Regal, anchored by a new master lease for 41 of the 57 properties previously operated by Regal. The new master lease became effective August 1st. The four former Regal locations now managed by Cinemark and one managed by Phoenix are all open, ramping up, and regaining market share.

Performance is in line with our expectations. As we reported in August, on July 17th, Santikos Theaters LLC acquired VSS-Southern Theaters through an asset purchase agreement. With 10 theaters, Southern was our fourth largest theater holding. Santikos is owned by the San Antonio Area Foundation, one of the nation’s premier community foundations. The combined Santikos entity operates 27 highly amenitized theaters in eight southeastern states, making it the eighth largest theater circuit in North America. In connection with the transaction, Southern paid in full its remaining deferred rent of $11.6 million, which was recognized as rental revenue in the third quarter. In the quarter, we took an impairment of $20.9 million related to a potential restructuring with a small regional theater chain.

We are working to finalize the agreement and will provide more detail on a future call. The third quarter was a continuation of box office recovery, despite the headwinds of the writers and actor strikes. The writer’s strike was settled in September and approved by the Writers Guild in early October. The Screen Actors Guild remains on strike, and we don’t have any insight into the timing of resolution. Box office for the first three quarters of 2023 was $7 billion, a 26% increase over the same time period in 2022. Led by $955 million in combined box office gross during the quarter from Barbie and Oppenheimer, Q3 total box office was $2.6 billion, a 38% increase over Q3 2022. Six films grossed over $100 million, and 13 grossed over $60 million, demonstrating the broad-based return of exhibition with contributions from both blockbusters and smaller films.

Q4 is off to a solid start led by Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which grossed $93 million on its opening weekend, the second highest October opening ever, and the highest grossing concert film opening ever, and has grossed $132 million through October 23rd. Through October 23rd, 21 titles have grossed over $100 million in 2023, and year-to-date box office gross stands at $7.44 billion, which exceeds the box office gross for all of 2022. Because of the continued strong performance, we believe domestic box office for 2023 will come in slightly above $9 billion, which is in line with the projections we shared in discussing our Regal resolution, and would be a 24% increase over 2022 domestic box office gross. We are optimistic about the remainder of the year with “Killers of the Flower Moon”, which opened last weekend and grossed $23 million, Renaissance, a film by Beyoncé, Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, The Marvels, Napoleon, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

Importantly, our high-quality theater portfolio continues to outperform the industry. Turning now to an update on our other major customer groups. We continue to see good results and ongoing consumer demand across all segments of our Drive-To value-oriented destinations. Across the board, operators are managing increased operating expenses, which is negatively impacting EBITDARM for some. While attendance remains strong, in some properties we are seeing an anticipated pullback from peak post-pandemic attendance. Our Eaton play assets continued their strong performance with portfolio revenue and EBITDARM up over Q3 2022. At its own expense, Topgolf renovated five of our assets in 2023, replacing the outfield turf and lighting, repainting and upgrading signage.

Our attractions portfolio saw attendance gains. EBITDARM was pressured by increasing insurance and wage costs, but we still have comfortable rent coverage. Construction of the indoor water park at the Bavarian Inn Lodge in Frankenmuth, Michigan is about 25% complete and on schedule for a summer 2024 opening. Attendance at City Museum in St. Louis is up 11% year-over-year, driving increased revenue and EBITDARM. Our Titanic museums also demonstrated strong attendance, revenue and EBITDARM growth year-over-year. Across our fitness offerings, we’re seeing continued year-over-year growth in membership revenue, as the post pandemic emphasis on fitness continues. We are also seeing improvements in EBITDARM and EBITDARM margin. Construction is underway for both the expansion of the Springs Resort in Pagosa Springs, which will open in early 2025, and the redevelopment of our Murrieta, California conference center into a new Natural Hot Springs Resort which is scheduled to open in early 2024.

Construction on improvements to both Gravity Haus, Steamboat Springs and Aspen locations is also well underway. Vail reported season pass sales are up 7% and Alyeska joins the Icon Pass program for the coming season. We continue to be pleased with the strong performance of the Nordic Spa at Alyeska. Room renovations continue at Alyeska, including the addition of a glacier lounge and new suites. Our Margaritaville Hotel Nashville, proximate to all of Nashville’s famous downtown destinations, continues its upward trajectory in revenue, EBITDARM and occupancy. At both the Beachcomber and Bellwether Resorts in St. Pete Beach, we continue to see increases in occupancy, operating revenue and EBITDARM, while ADR and RevPAR are normalizing from post pandemic highs.

Revenue and EBITDARM increased year-over-year in Q3 for our overall RV park portfolio. The conversion of the former Cajun Palms to Camp Margaritaville Breaux Bridge is complete and we are starting to see improved results. Construction on improvements at Jellystone, Kozy Rest and Suburban Pittsburgh is underway to be complete by Memorial Day and we have completed 80% of the redevelopment at Jellystone Warrens in the Wisconsin Dells. Our education portfolio continues to perform well, with year-over-year increases through June 30th across the portfolio of 12% in revenue and 6% in EBITDARM. Attendance is holding steady at very high levels and increased across the entire portfolio for June 2023, trailing 12 months. Turning to capital recycling, as we reported in August, during the quarter we sold two more KinderCare locations for which the lease was terminated for combined net proceeds of $13.9 million and a gain of approximately $1.5 million.

Both will be operated as schools. We have now sold three of the five and have a signed purchase agreement for the fourth. Again as we reported in July, in the third quarter we sold a former Cinemex Theater in Hialeah, Florida, for a non-theater use for net proceeds of $9 million and a gain of $750,000. We were not able to publicly market any of the 11 surrendered Regal Theaters we planned to sell until mid-July. I’m pleased to report that in the third quarter we sold the first of the 11 for net proceeds of $3.7 million and a gain of about $300,000. As of today, we have either executed letters of intent or signed purchase and sale agreements for six of the remaining ten former Regal Theaters. As has been our experience over the past two plus years, the potential future uses are varied and dependent on the location of the real estate.

Year-to-date, we have generated approximately $35 million in net proceeds from dispositions. Subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions, we anticipate closing additional dispositions in Q4 and are thus revising our 2023 guidance for dispositions from a range of $31 million to $41 million to a range of $40 million to $60 million. In Q3, our investment spending was $36.8 million, bringing our total investment spending for the first nine months of the year to $135.5 million. This consisted of funding of experiential development and redevelopment projects commenced in 2022 and 2023. We’re narrowing our investment spending guidance range for funds to be deployed in 2023 from a range of $200 million to $300 million to a range of $225 million to $275 million.

At the end of Q3, we have committed an additional approximately $235 million in experiential development and redevelopment projects, which we expect to fund over the next two years without the need to raise additional capital. We anticipate approximately $63 million of that $235 million will be deployed over the remainder of 2023, and that is the amount included in our 2023 guidance range. Cap rates continue to be in the 8% range. In most of our experiential categories, we are seeing high-quality opportunities for both acquisition and build-to-suit redevelopment and expansion. We continue to be pleased with our pipeline and with new and existing customers and concepts. But as we have consistently said over the past several quarters, we are exercising discipline in evaluating new transactions given our cost of capital and the current interest rate environment.

I now turn it over to Mark for a discussion of the financials.

Mark Peterson: Thank you, Greg. Today I will discuss our financial performance for the third quarter, provide an update on our balance sheet, and close with providing updated 2023 guidance. We had another strong quarter of results with FFOs adjusted $1.47 per share versus $1.16 in the prior year, up 27%, and AFFO of $1.47 per share compared to $1.22 in the prior year, up 20%. Now moving to the key variances by line item, total revenue for the quarter was $189.4 million versus $161.4 million in the prior year, an increase of 17%. In addition to the effect of acquisitions, development, and scheduled rent increases, a number of other items contributed to this increase. As we discussed last quarter, Regal emerged from bankruptcy on July 31st and the new master lease became effective on August 1st.

In connection with re-establishing accrual basis accounting for Regal, we recognized approximately $700,000 in straight line rental revenue during the quarter as anticipated related to the new master lease with Regal. In addition, we recognized straight line rental revenue that was not anticipated, totaling $2.1 million, primarily related to recording a straight line receivable on the master lease on the effective date, related to four ground leases that are subleased to Regal. During the quarter, we collected a total of $19.3 million of deferral payments from cash basis customers that was recognized as additional revenue. This included, among other collections, the $11.6 million of remaining deferred rent received from Southern related to its sale to Santikos and Regal’s stub rent and pre-petition rent for September of 2022, totaling $3.8 million, as I outlined on our last call.

We also received an additional $1.2 million of prior period property operating expense reimbursements from Regal that were not previously anticipated. Going forward, we could receive an amount related to our rejection damages with Regal that is treated as an unsecured claim in the bankruptcy, but any such amount is expected to be insignificant. With Regal’s bankruptcy resolution and the full deferral payment by Southern, the deferred rent receivable not on our books, excluding the amount held in advance related to Regal, is reduced to approximately $12.7 million at quarter end. Of this amount, approximately $11.6 million relates to one cash basis attraction tenant whose repayment timing is based on an earnings threshold, which is not expected to be achieved in 2023.

The remaining amount of approximately $1.1 million relates to two cash basis tenants that are paying according to agreed upon schedules through 2024. Thus, as you can see on the schedule of cash basis deferral collections, we have recognized significant amounts of such revenue in 2022 and through the third quarter of 2023. We expect such amounts to be nominal in the fourth quarter of 2023 and for all of 2024. After I go over our 2023 revised guidance, I will illustrate the impact these out of period deferral collections are expected to have on our anticipated growth and FFOs adjusted per share for 2023 versus prior year. Both other income and other expense relate primarily to our operating properties. The increases in these amounts of $3.1 million and $4 million, respectively, compared to the prior year were due primarily to the fact that five of the 16 theaters surrendered by and previously leased to Regal have been operated by third parties on EPR’s behalf since early August.

These properties experienced a slight loss during the third quarter as anticipated. In addition, the net profit of the remaining managed properties taken as a whole was also slightly lower than prior year. Percentage rents for the quarter increased to $2.1 million versus $1.5 million in the prior year primarily due to increased revenue at one cultural property. On the expense side, G&A expense for the quarter increased to $13.5 million versus $12.6 million in the prior year due primarily to higher payroll costs, including non-cash share-based compensation expense, as well as higher professional fees, including those related to the Regal Resolution. Interest expense net for the quarter decreased by $1.5 million compared to prior year due to an increase in interest income on short-term investments and an increase in capitalized interest on projects under development.

As Greg mentioned previously, during the quarter we recognized impairment charges of $20.9 million related to two theater properties that are part of a workout with a small theater tenant. These charges are excluded from FFO, FFO, and AFFO. Turning to the next slide, I want to review some of the company’s key credit ratios. As you can see, our coverage ratios continue to be strong with fixed charge coverage at 3.8 times and both interest and debt service coverage at 4.5 times. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDAre was 4.4 times for the quarter. However, excluding the favorable impacts of out-of-period revenue and annualizing other items, net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDAre was 5.1 times for the quarter, still at the low end of our stated range of 5 to 5.6 times.

Additionally, our net debt to gross assets was 38% on a book basis at September 30th. Lastly, our common dividend continues to be very well covered with an AFFO payout ratio for the third quarter of only 56%. Now let’s move to our balance sheet, which is in great shape. At quarter end, we had consolidated debt of $2.8 billion, all of which is either fixed rate debt or debt that has been fixed through interest rate swaps with a blended coupon of approximately 4.3%. Additionally, our weighted average consolidated debt maturity is 4.5 years with no scheduled debt maturities in 2023 and only $136.6 million due in 2024. We had $173 million of cash on hand at quarter end and no balance drawn on our $1 billion revolver, which puts us in an enviable position given the difficult backdrop of the capital markets.

We are pleased to be increasing our 2023 FFOs adjusted per shared guidance to a range of 510 to 518 from a range of 505 to 515. I will go over the changes from our previous midpoint of guidance in a moment. Note that the revised 2023 guidance range implies an FFOs adjusted per share range for the fourth quarter of $1.10 to $1.18. As we have discussed previously, given our cost of capital in the current inflationary environment, we have consciously decided to limit our near-term investment spending. We are narrowing our 2023 investment spending guidance to a range of 225 million to 275 million from a range of 200 million to 300 million, and we do not anticipate the need to raise additional capital to fund these amounts. We are increasing our guidance for disposition proceeds for 2023 to a range of 45 million to 60 million from a range of 31 million to 41 million.

Lastly, guidance for percentage rent and G&A expense is unchanged. I want to remind everyone that none of the percentage rent expected for 2023 relates to the new Regal Master Lease, which is based on lease year and is expected to start being recognized in 2024. Guidance details can be found on page 24 of our supplemental. I thought it would be helpful to provide a bridge from the midpoint of our previous FFOs adjusted per share guidance of 510 to the midpoint of our increased guidance of 514. As you can see on the slide, the $0.04 increase in guidance is driven primarily by the two favorable revenue items recognized during the third quarter that I discussed earlier. The 2.1 million of additional straight line rent and the additional 1.2 million of operating expense reimbursements related to Regal.

As I mentioned earlier, on the next slide, I want to illustrate the anticipated impact on growth in FFOs adjusted per share for 2023 when you remove the impact of audit period cash basis deferral collections from 2022 of $18.4 million or $0.24 per share, and from the midpoint of guidance for 2023 of $36 million or $0.47 per share. As you can see on the slide, FFOs adjusted per share growth from 2022 to 2023 is expected to still be a healthy 4.9%. Finally, I want to make one last point that I think is important to understand and perhaps sets EPR apart in a difficult environment for all REITs. Over the next couple of years, given our low dividend payout ratio and modest debt maturities, we believe we can use excess cash flow, disposition proceeds, and some of our line capacity to increase investments a modest amount and still grow FFOs adjusted per share, excluding the impact from cash basis deferral collections, by around 4% each year, while maintaining our targeted debt to adjusted EBITDA range of 5 to 5.6 times.

When this growth is combined with a well-covered dividend yield of nearly 8% currently, we believe that EPR offers shareholders a compelling investment opportunity. Now with that, I’ll turn it back over to Greg for his closing remarks.

Gregory Silvers: Thank you, Mark. In conclusion, I want to leave you with a few salient points regarding our performance. One, as Greg pointed out, 2023 box office is expected to be at or above $9 billion, a 24% increase over last year. Two, our theater coverage normalized for the Regal transaction currently stands at 1.5 times, and this is computed on a trailing 12-month box office of $8.1 billion. With an anticipated $9 billion box office for 2023, we expect that we will be back to our longstanding pre-pandemic theater coverage range of 1.6 to 1.8. Three, even with the ongoing actor strike, currently most industry participants predict 2024 box office to be at least $9 billion. Four, our non-theater portfolio continues to significantly outperform pre-pandemic metrics.

As these points demonstrate, our belief in the resilience of the experiential economy is grounded in performance. Not only have we collected over $150 million of deferred rents, but our properties are now performing at or above their pre-pandemic levels. With that, why don’t I open it up for questions? Victor?

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Joshua Dennerlein from Bank of America. Your line is open.

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Q&A Session

Joshua Dennerlein: Hey, guys. Appreciate the color and the opening remarks. Just kind of thinking about your guide for the full year and then what it implies for 4Q, can you kind of help us bridge like where you are in 3Q to 4Q’s like implied range?

Mark Peterson: Yes, there’s a lot to that reconciliation, Josh, but I can go over kind of the major components here in a second. So first of all, obviously you’ve got about $0.25 of deferrals in Q3, and we expect that to be nominal in Q4, so that’s a big one as you head from Q3 to Q4. We also had straight line rent kind of one time of the $2.1 million, so that’s another $0.03. And then if you think about it, once you get deferrals out of the way, the Regal base rent is higher for one month in Q3 than it is in Q4, and that’s in about another $0.02. So you work that down, you get to about $1.17. Then as you head to Q4, there’s a couple things that are pretty big to keep in mind. The managed properties in JVs really drop in Q4, that’s their off-season, so there’s quite a bit of drop in FFO from Q3 to Q4 for those properties.

But on the other side, about 50% of our percentage rent of that $12 million is recognized in Q4, so that’s an up of about $0.05, whereas the timing of managed in JVs is kind of down about $0.08. Then there’s other minor items. So that’s a long way of saying that’s a way of getting from $1.47 this quarter to $1.14, but those are the major pieces as you head into Q4.

Joshua Dennerlein: Okay, all right, that’s super helpful. Appreciate that. And then, Mark, you did mention just kind of where you think the company can kind of stabilize on a go-forward basis for growth, I think without equity in your opening remarks. Could you kind of go over those assumptions again and just kind of how you’re thinking about it, maybe what could drive maybe upside to that growth rate?

Mark Peterson: Sure. So those comments are about over the next couple of years. So we’re talking about 2024 and 2025. We think we can grow approximately 4% in both of those years, driven by the fact that free cash flow that we’re investing of over $100 million at 8 and a quarter cap. Also, if you think about next year versus this year, we have the Regal percentage rents and operating theaters coming online that we didn’t get the benefit of this year. So this year there’s kind of a drop, the 20% drop in base rent, but next year we’ll get the benefit of the performance of those theaters as lease year, during the lease year and the operating theaters for the whole year. So there’s quite a bit of improvement there. And then I just think the investments, some of the investments we did in 2022, frankly, that was kind of outsized.

Remember we did 600 million worth of deals and those are starting to come online this year and next year. So you put that all together and you have some things going the other way as well. You put it all together though, we think that translates to about a 4% growth in both years. So fortunately, we have cash on hand and nothing drawn on our line. So, and we only have the 136 million of maturities in 2024 and then 300 million in 2025. We don’t think that if you do the math on our line, that we’ll need to access the capital markets to achieve that 4% growth through 2025. So we’re encouraged by that.

Joshua Dennerlein: Okay, awesome, thank you.

Mark Peterson: Thanks Josh.

Operator: One moment for our next question. And our next question will come from Eric Wolfe from Citi. Your line is open.

Eric Wolfe: Hey, thanks. I think you’ve previously given a sort of run rate FFO guidance for like 471, which excluded sort of the impact of the default, but also included the impact of the reward structure and other things. Is that still a good base on which to think about the growth that you just outlined?