Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Brad Heffern with RBC. Please proceed with your question.
Brad Heffern: Hey, everyone. I was just curious if you could talk through what you’re seeing on the deal flow front and maybe where you’re expecting cap rates to trend.
Peter Carlino: Steve, do you want to talk about that? I mean, yes. Why don’t you take that.
Steven Ladany: Sure. Yes. Look, as far as deal flow goes, I’d say we’re arguably as busy as we’ve kind of ever been. There are lots of different things that are coming in from every direction. Some of its development related. Some of it’s domestic. Some of it’s not — we’re seeing all sorts of different transactions come our way, and it’s mostly related to the gyrations in the capital markets, presenting some opportunity. And maybe that dovetails to your other part of your question, which is I mean, I think from an expectation perspective, I think that you’re going to see cap rates potentially float a little bit higher. The kind of counterbalance to that is, I think that our asset class has really outperformed over the last few years.
And it’s taking — starting to get noticed by other people. So we’re seeing increased competition coming in at times or at least an interest in the sector, and as you saw in Boston, for example. But at the same time, I think the capital markets and the cost of capital are kind of offsetting that. And so I do think you’ll see deals get done at slightly higher cap rates than we’ve seen in the past two years.
Brad Heffern: Okay, and any updated thoughts on potentially acquiring Lincoln at some point down the road?
Steven Ladany: Yes. I mean our best — right now, our best expectation is that it’s likely a 2024 event. I don’t see a lot of reasons why Valley’s would be incented to try to effectuate receiving that approval in 2023. But I do think there are a number of reasons that they may be, in fact, in position in 2024 to look to go that direction. So that’s our expectation here.
Brad Heffern: Okay, thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho. Please proceed with your question.
Haendel St. Juste: He, good morning. Thank you. I wanted to go back to the capital allocation in the quarter. You guys were very active in the quarter. And I was hoping you could provide some color on some of the decisions you made, including paying down your $500 million notes with cash while you also issued looks like about $200 million of equity from 4Q into early 1Q while also receiving the $200 million back from Valley’s. And so you’re sitting here with lots of great liquidity and leverage. So I guess, help us understand the — some of the decisions made in the quarter? And how do you expect to, I guess, the poise excess liquidity over the near term? I see you have some development projects in the pipeline. So help us understand the balance sheet philosophy as well. Thanks.
Desiree Burke: Sure. So we wanted to repay the $500 million, because, as you know, issuing 10-year debt in this market is probably a low six handle, not something that we would really love to live with for 10-years, as well as the fact that we had the Valley’s transaction, which was requiring us to have debt financed proceeds that needed to be guaranteed by Valley’s. So we had to borrow $600 million. So we thought it was a prudent to use some equity in order to do that. We paid down some debt and borrowed new debt. So there were some equity utilized for the Valley’s transaction even though in essence, it was a debt finance transaction. Anybody want to…
