Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:EPRT) Q1 2023 Results Conference Call April 27, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Pete Mavoides - President and Chief Executive Officer

Mark Patten - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Haendel St. Juste - Mizuho

RJ Milligan - Raymond James

Greg McGinniss - Scotiabank

Nick Joseph - Citi

Ki Bin Kim - Trust

Spenser Allaway - Green Street Advisors

Joshua Dennerlein - Bank of America

Jim Kemmer - Evercore

John Massoca - Ladenburg Thalman

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Essential Properties Realty Trust First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions, [Operator Instructions] as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and a replay of the call will be available 2 hours after the completion of the call for the next 2 weeks. The dial-in details for the replay can be found in yesterday's press release. Additionally, there will be an audio webcast available on Essential Properties Realty Trust's website at www.essentialproperties.com. An archive of which will be available for 90 days.

On the call this morning are Pete Mavoides, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Patten, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mark Patten. Please go ahead, sir.

Mark Patten

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the first quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call of Essential Properties Realty Trust. During this call, we will make certain statements that may be considered forward-looking statements under federal securities law. The company's actual future results may differ significantly from the matters discussed in these forward-looking statements, and we may not release revisions to those forward-looking statements to reflect changes after the statements were made. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are disclosed from time to time in greater detail in the company's filings with the SEC and in yesterday's earnings press release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Pete.

Pete Mavoides

Thanks, Mark, and thank you to everyone who is joining us today for your interest in EPRT. As our first quarter earnings release indicates, we had a very solid first quarter, highlighted by the strength and stability of our portfolio and our strong investment activity. Our properties continue to perform at a high level with unit level rent coverage staying strong at 3.9x. Our same-store rent growth remaining at 1.6% for the second straight quarter and just 4 vacant properties. The overall health of our portfolio is a testament to our disciplined underwriting process, the quality of our operators and the resiliency of our service-oriented and experience-based businesses. With regard to our investment activity, the benefits of our differentiated strategy and the development of long-standing tenant relationships were evident in the first quarter as we acquired 57 properties and 24 separate transactions that were 100% sale-leaseback transactions with 94% of those deals generated from existing relationships.