W. P. Carey Inc. (WPC) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Hello, and welcome to W. P. Carey's Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Kevin and I'll be your operator today. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today's event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions].

It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Peter Sands, Head of Investor Relations. Mr. Sands please go ahead.

Peter Sands

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning for our 2022 second quarter earnings call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements made on this call are not historic facts and may be deemed forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from W. P. Carey's expectations are provided in our SEC filings. An online replay of this conference call will be made available in the Investor Relations section of our website at wpcarey.com, where it will be archived for approximately one year and where you can also find copies of our investor presentations and other related materials.

And with that, I'll hand the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Jason Fox

Jason Fox

Thank you, Peter and good morning, everyone. During the second quarter, we continued to successfully navigate a dynamic market backdrop, performing strongly on a number of fronts. The same-store rent growth reached new high and raising our expectations for the deal volume we can achieve this year. In an environment where investors are concerned about inflation, rising rates and potential for recession, we believe we're uniquely positioned among our net lease peers to continue growing.

The outperformance of our stock has enabled us to raise additional forward equity, ensuring we have ample capital to deploy some new investments raised at stock prices that help offset some of the spread compression caused by sharply higher interest rates. And with cap rates moving higher, we're optimistic about our ability to continue investing accretively in the second half of the year.

We also continue to offer downside protection with one of the healthiest balance sheets in the net lease sector, a diversified approach and a roughly 5% dividend yield supported by high-quality cash flows and best-in-class rent collections throughout COVID.

I'm joined this morning by Toni Sanzone our CFO and together will cover these topics in addition to our earnings and updated guidance, which includes the impacts of our merger with CPA 18 closing just a few days from now. John Park, our President; and Brooks Gordon, our Head of Asset Management; are also here to take questions.