W. P. Carey Inc. (WPC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 28, 2023 10:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Hello, and welcome to W. P. Carey's Second Quarter 2023 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].

I will now turn the program 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 2023 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 and 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 pass the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Jason Fox.

Jason Fox

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. We made good progress during the second quarter, closing a significant volume of accretive new investments in an environment that remains construct for sale leasebacks, enabling us to apply upward pressure on cap rates.

Our contractual same-store rent growth also remains among the best in the net lease sector. And even though inflation is cooling, we expect to continue leading the peer group on rent growth, driven by the lagged impact of CPI and rents as well as the strength of our fixed rent increases.

This morning, I'll briefly recap our recent investment activity and talk a little about how we're uniquely positioned within the net lease sector through both our competitive position and the various sources of capital available to us, giving us confidence in our ability to continue investing in the second half of the year and manage our near-term debt maturities, even if capital markets are constrained.

I'm joined this morning by our CFO, Toni Sanzone, who will review our second quarter results, expectations for the full year, and balance sheet positioning. John Park, our President; and Brooks Gordon, our Head of Asset Management; are also on the call and available to take questions.