Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. Q1 FY2020 Earnings Call

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Essential Properties Realty Trust First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be opened for questions following the presentation. This conference call is being recorded and a replay of the call will be available two hours after the completion of the call for two weeks. The dial-in details for the replay can be found in today's press release. Additionally, there will be an audio webcast available on Essential Properties' website at www.essentialproperties.com, an archive of which will be available for 90 days. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Dan Donlan, Senior Vice President and Head of Capital Markets at Essential Properties. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for Essential Properties' first quarter 2020 conference call. With me today to discuss our first quarter results are Pete Mavoides, our President and CEO; Gregg Seibert, our COO; and Anthony Dobkin our Interim CFO. During this conference 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 yesterday's earnings press release. With that, Pete, please go ahead.

Thank you, Dan. And thank you to everyone who has joined us today for your interest in Essential Properties. First off, we would like to extend our thoughts and prayers to all of those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and thank all of the frontline workers who are working hard to keep our country safe and healthy. Starting with the current situation, we wanted to highlight what has changed since we first provided a business update on April 15th. As of today, approximately 71% of our portfolio, as a percentage of ABR, is open or operating on a limited basis, which compares to 66% as of April 15. April rent collection came in at 61% in comparison to 53% at April 15. While it is still early to tell, we forecast May rent collection to be a few hundred basis points lower and June rent collections to be a few basis points higher than April. Consistent with past practices, we are committed to providing investors with current and important transparency regarding our portfolio performance. So you should expect to see timely business updates as the situation continues to evolve. Moving onto rent deferrals, approximately 33% of our April rent was deferred versus 29% as of April 15. With that in mind, we have noticed that many market participants are looking at a level of rent collections versus rent deferrals as an accurate indicator of tenant credit and portfolio health. We believe it is much more an indication of how management has approached the crisis. When tenants requested potential rent deferrals in response to their operations being shut down or severely limited as a result of government-mandated stay-at-home orders, we took a very accommodative approach. As a result, we increased our rent receivables by approximately $16 million, representing an average accommodation of roughly $180,000 across 88 individual tenants and 320 properties. We very easily could have firmly exerted our rights under our lease agreements to minimize deferrals and maximize cash collections in April. We felt it was a more prudent business decision given the extreme nature of the circumstances to work constructively with our tenants with a longer-term view rather than a focus on short-term rent collections. Specifically, we believe our more accommodative stance has resulted in stronger tenant relationships and a healthier liquidity position for our tenants. We firmly believe this stance will benefit the company in the long run. In terms of the first quarter, we ended the quarter with investments in 1,050 properties that were 99.5% leased to 212 tenants operating in 16 distinct industries. Our weighted average lease term stood at 14.6 years, with just 2% of our ABR expiring prior to 2024. Our same-store portfolio represented approximately 58% of our ABR at quarter-end and includes five vacant restaurant properties, experiencing a 1.8% year-over-year decline in cash rents. This quarter was heavily impacted by the Art Van bankruptcy, which was protracted by the shutdown of non-essential businesses in the State of Michigan. When excluding the impact of Art Van, our same-store cash rent grew nearly 1%. In terms of Art Van, we reached an agreement last week with a new operator to lease all four of our sites under a new master lease at a recovery of 70% versus prior rents, and we expect rent to commence later in the third quarter. Due to an in-place confidentiality agreement, we cannot comment further. From a tenant health perspective, our portfolio has a weighted average rent coverage of 2.9 times with 73.4% of our ABR having a rent coverage ratio of two times or better. Looking out over the next 10 years, less than 1% of leases that expire have unit level rent coverage below 1.5 times, which we believe indicates a high likelihood of lease renewal at expiration. Additionally, only 2.9% of our tenants have both an implied credit rating lower than B per Moody's RiskCalc and a unit level coverage below 1.5 times, which represents a very manageable number of tenants and properties with elevated risk characteristics. We anticipate these characteristics and the profitability of our tenants to protect our collateral value and allow our tenants to perform under their lease obligations as our operations begin to normalize. Turning to investment activity in the quarter, we invested $167 million at a weighted average cash cap rate of 7.1%. Approximately 88% of our first quarter investments were directly originated sale leasebacks or mortgage loans subject to sale leaseback transactions, 54% contained master lease provisions, and 100% are required to provide us with corporate and unit level financial reporting on a regular basis. On the disposition front, in an effort to proactively mitigate risks and exposures, we sold 10 properties at a 7.1% cash cap rate during the quarter, generating $19.6 million in net proceeds. Looking out to the balance of 2020, while we have deliberately slowed our investment activity, we do plan to invest on a highly selective basis, which will largely be funded through our accretive capital recycling program. Additionally, given the high level of uncertainty in the capital markets, maintaining a conservative stance toward our balance sheet and liquidity remains of paramount importance to us, as Anthony will discuss momentarily. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Anthony, who will take you through the balance sheet and the financials for the first quarter. Anthony?

Thank you, Pete, and good morning everyone. I would like to start by thanking Hillary for years of excellent work with the company and making my transition into the interim CFO role as seamless as possible. As a member of the EPRT Board and Audit Committee, I had worked closely with Hillary in the past. When I joined EPRT as Interim CFO, I was pleased to confirm that she had built an excellent accounting and finance organization. Lastly, before I move on to the financials, I would like to say that, as a Board member and a shareholder, I have been extremely impressed by the entire EPRT organization and how they have effectively managed through this unprecedented crisis. Now on to the first quarter. Starting with the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with low leverage and significant liquidity and continue to reduce secured debt and grow our unencumbered asset pool. At quarter-end, our total undepreciated asset base was $2.4 billion and we had $871 million of debt, implying a 36.2% debt to gross assets. Gross unencumbered investments at $1.8 billion, representing 82% of total gross investments. Secured debt was 7.3% of gross assets, down from 11.6% at year-end. Net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDA, which is our preferred leverage metric, was 4.6 times as of March 31st. Our total liquidity, which consisted of $214 million in cash and $335 million of availability under our line of credit, was $549 million as of quarter-end and we had no debt maturing prior to 2024. This approximate $550 million of liquidity is a key differentiator for us, given our size, as it represents 26% of gross investments and is 3.4 times our annualized base rent, almost 4 times our annualized cash fixed cost. Leverage and liquidity have not been this important of a market factor since the financial crisis, and I cannot emphasize our balance sheet strength enough. During the quarter, we raised approximately $198 million of net equity at a weighted average price of $25.19, drew the remaining $180 million available under our term loan facility, retired $62 million of our secured ABS Notes without penalty and ended the quarter with $65 million outstanding on our line of credit. As a result, due to the uncertain capital markets environment, we were intentionally carrying a larger than usual cash balance at quarter-end. While we may choose to carry a lower cash balance in the second quarter, you should expect us to continue to manage our balance sheet in a very conservative manner until the environment improves, so that we are primed to capitalize on future investment opportunities. Turning to the P&L, AFFO was $27 million during the quarter or $0.29 per share, representing a 7% increase over the first quarter of 2019. We had several non-recurring expenses during the quarter, all of which are detailed on page three of our supplemental. G&A during the quarter was higher than usual, both on a reported basis and after backing out the non-recurring impact of employee severance expenses. This was largely due to elevated costs associated with the Sarbanes-Oxley 404 (b) audit along with front-loading of some employee-related expenses, and we expect that recurring G&A will be lower on a notional basis for the remaining three quarters of the year. Lastly, given the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are withdrawing our 2020 guidance. As Pete mentioned, we will continue to provide the market with portfolio performance updates on a timely basis. With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Gregg Seibert.

Thanks, Anthony. I want to start with the impact of COVID-19 on our portfolio, which we have summarized on page 15 of our supplemental. As of last week, 48% of our portfolio ABR was open, 23% was open on a limited operating basis and 29% was closed. In terms of rent collection, 61% of our April rent was paid, 33% was deferred, and 6% was unresolved. With over 200 tenants in our portfolio, I would like to thank both our credit and asset management teams for their diligent efforts in coming to terms with the vast majority of our tenant base in such a short period of time. For greater context, we have agreed to defer April rent either in full or part for 88 tenants across 320 properties. These deferrals total $16.1 million in rent or 10% of our annual contractual cash rent. The average deferral period is 3.1 months, with an average payback period of 12.7 months. Breaking down the unresolved portion of April rent, AMC Theaters and Art Van Furniture represents 73% of this cohort. As Pete mentioned, we reached an agreement last week to re-let Art Van. The remaining 27% of unresolved rent is spread out across nine different restaurant operators and 26 properties with an average rent per site of $106,000. Coupled with the bite-sized nature of these properties, we see minimal rent leakage on a re-let should we not come to terms with the current tenants. Moving on to investments, during the first quarter, we invested $167 million in 32 transactions and 63 properties at a weighted average cash cap rate of 7.1%. These investments were made within nine different industries, with early childhood education, quick service restaurants, medical, dental, and auto service representing 75% of our investment activity in the quarter. The weighted average lease term of these properties was 16.1 years, the weighted average annual rent escalation was 1.4%, and our average unit investment per property was $2.7 million. Consistent with our investment strategy, approximately 88% of our first quarter investments were originated through a direct sale leaseback and mortgage loans, subject to a sale leaseback transaction, which are subject to our lease form with ongoing financial reporting requirements. From an industry perspective, quick service restaurants remained our largest industry at 14.3% of ABR, followed by early childhood education at 13.3%, car washes at 11.8%, medical dental at 10.9%, and convenience stores at 10.6%. From a tenant concentration perspective, no tenant represented more than 3.2% of our ABR at quarter-end, with our top 10 representing 23.1% of ABR, which was down 30 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Looking at the portfolio more broadly, approximately 94.4% of our ABR is derived from tenants that operate service-oriented and experience-based businesses. While several businesses within these industries have been severely impacted by COVID-19, we continue to believe tenants in these industries, and more importantly, real estate occupied by these tenants, are recession-resistant and better insulated from e-commerce pressures, which has been accelerated by the current situation. Moving on to asset management, our portfolio remains healthy with a weighted average rent coverage of 2.9 times and 73.4% of our ABR having a rent coverage ratio of two times or better. In addition, with 98% of our tenants required to report unit level financials to us, we have near real-time transparency into the health of our tenancy, which is an important component of managing risk in our portfolio. In terms of dispositions this quarter, we sold 10 properties in different industries for $19.6 million net of transaction costs. Despite having 0.7 times unit level coverage, we achieved a 7.1% weighted average cash cap rate, which equated to a 3.2% realized gain versus our allocated purchase price. With that, I will turn it back to Pete for his concluding remarks.

Thanks, Gregg. This past month has certainly been a trying time for many, if not all of us. I believe it is during times like these that management teams, underwriting, and investment strategies are tested. I would like to thank all of our team at Essential Properties for readily adapting to the challenges and constructively working with our tenants to manage through this difficult time. I'm confident that over time, the strength of our investment strategy and durability of our portfolio will differentiate Essential Properties going forward. With that, operator, please open the call for questions.

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. And we'll take our first question from Nate Crossett with Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys. How are you doing?

Doing well, Nate. Thank you.

I appreciate the comments on Art Van. I wanted to mention AMC. There are reports that Amazon might be interested, and while I don't expect you to comment on that, how should we think about your position with AMC? Could you describe your current discussions with them and how you assess the strength of your locations?

Sure. As we said, you know, AMC, as we sit today, we have five properties, less than 3% of our ABR. They are in our unresolved bucket, so obviously that's an ongoing situation. In general, we're really comfortable with the theaters that we own and we were very selective in the theaters that we purchased over the last three to four years. And you know, as with the Art Van situation, we would expect that if there is a bankruptcy filing, our assets would be assets that the company would choose to restructure around, and we would emerge relatively intact. So, we have confidence in our underwriting and in our asset selection, which pertains to the whole portfolio and specifically for AMC.

Okay. That's helpful. For the rent that's currently under deferral, is that just the straight deferral, or are you guys getting any concessions in terms of extended lease term or interest?

Yeah. Listen, with 88 individual deferral agreements, there is a wide variety. In some instances, we're getting interest, in some instances we're getting extended terms or bumps. But I would say in general, we try to keep it plain vanilla. To the extent that we defer the quarter and we’re getting it back in a reasonable timeframe, there are no offsetting concessions. But there is a whole wide range of considerations.

Okay, thanks. I'll get back in the queue. Thanks, guys.

And next, we'll move to Greg McGinniss with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Just to follow-up on that deferral question. Are taxes and insurance part of the deferred costs or how are you guys treating that with the tenants?

Yeah. The treatment of taxes and insurance does not change. It's part of the lease. It's the tenant's obligation, and certainly part of the deferral discussion was ensuring that our tenants remained current on all their lease obligations with the exception of base rent.

Okay. And then, Pete, you mentioned potentially remaining active in the acquisitions market contingent on disposition funding. Just curious what your ability is to sell assets right now or offload vacant assets in this market. And to add to that, how is holding potentially more vacant assets going to be impacting property cost leakage expectations this year?

Yeah. Listen, we talk a lot about our fungibility and our granularity. And if you think about asset liquidity, it's directly correlated to the size of the asset and the purchase price inversely correlated. So with $2.2 million invested in each asset, we have good confidence that there’s good liquidity for us to sell properties. If you look at our historical disposition activity in moving out risky assets, we've been very active in that regard. In my commentary, I spoke about the important part of our investment strategy proving out. I think the liquidity in properties is going to be part of that. Managing carry costs of those vacant properties is essential. Since inception, we've largely operated at 100% occupancy. This quarter we dipped down to 99.5%, but there's good liquidity. If you think about our unresolved bucket and the details that Gregg provided earlier, 26 properties at $106,000 a site are imminently manageable and granular.

All right. Thank you.

And next we'll move to Christy McElroy with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning and thank you. In regard to the deferrals, the point about post-petition obligation is well taken. Of the $16 million of rent you've deferred thus far, it looks like $5 million of that was April rent. How much of the remaining $11 million is associated with May and June? And then do you expect to still accrue all of these rents for GAAP and FFO?

Yeah, I'll let Anthony tackle the accrual question, but we gave you the average deferral of 3.1 months. That should give you the sense that the vast majority of that remaining $11 million is in May and June. In some cases, we've extended that out, driven by the specific industry's conditions and tenant needs regarding ramping operations back up. In terms of the revenue recognition, Anthony?

Yeah, sure. As long as we believe that it is probable that we're going to receive those rents, we are going to book them as revenues. So, yes.

Okay. And then just with the 2Q collection rate as low as it's likely to be, and you gave April and said that May would be lower and June higher. How are you and the Board thinking about the dividend payout for this quarter? I mean, we've seen many other REITs thinking about the strip center REITs with collections that are at this level suspend the payout temporarily. How are you thinking about the dividend?

Well, we're not declaring any dividend on this call. First of all, our Board usually does that towards the end of the quarter, and we're going to do that again in this quarter. So we have a good amount of time to assess our position because this is a rapidly evolving landscape and we'll know a lot more by then. With that said, we do have a lot of liquidity and our dividend is important to our shareholders. As I mentioned in our prepared remarks, I want to clarify something. Our liquidity is over four times greater than our annualized cash fixed costs, including dividend payments and principal amortization. So we are sitting in a really good liquidity position and do have ample liquidity to be patient.

Okay, got it. So, yeah, I wasn't expecting you to declare. Just that I wanted to get a sense of some of the factors around that, but it sounds like you're comfortable with the liquidity position regardless of the collection.

We are.

Thank you.

And next we'll move to Sheila McGrath with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Pete, could you remind us what percent of tenants are under master lease than unit level economics and how that is an advantage for you when you're having these rental deferral discussions? Just want to understand that.

Sure, Sheila. Thanks. So 60% of our portfolio is subject to master leases and you know that having the master lease really ramps the location performance with others and makes that a singular negotiation. In the current situation, when most of our tenants are operating regionally and most of them are 100% shut down, it doesn't help out a lot. But clearly, when operations normalize and performance rebounds, having that kind of collective protection of a master lease is very important to us.

Okay, great. And one other question. If you could just give us some insights on what percent of your tenants might have been eligible for the various government assistance programs and how that's playing into your tenant's health?

Yeah. So, as we disclosed in our April 15th presentation, we estimated about 53% of our tenants were eligible for the PPP program. There are obviously other government programs out there, but we've seen very positive impacts of that program. Specific tenants where we had deferrals in place came back and honored the deferrals. Tenants who had deferral requests were fulfilled, and we saw significant success with the first round and continue to see benefits. So we're happy to report that government program has been very constructive both for our tenant base and for the overall economy.

Okay. And last quick one actually. Anthony, you seem to be doing a great job, but I just wondered if you could give us an update on the CFO search, that must be difficult considering everybody is locked at home?

Yeah. Listen, obviously, Anthony is our Interim CFO and that's broadly acknowledged, and we are conducting a search. We retained a search firm that has reached out and surfaced a great roster of potential candidates, and we're kind of running through that process now. A lot of the legwork is done upfront and on the phone, so we're in a good spot with Anthony mining the shop to take time and get to the right spot.

Okay, thank you.

And next we'll move to Sam Choe with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Hi guys. Most of my questions have been answered, but just going back to your comment about the May rent and June rent collections. Just wanted to run through how that expectation is working out. Is it like a function of what you're seeing in terms of the state re-openings and the conversations you have with your tenants? Just wanted more color there.

Yeah. So, I mean, listen, with over 30% deferrals that span the entire quarter, a lot of the tenants facing the greatest stress have come to terms. We have a very manageable tenant roster with 200 plus tenants, and we did look at each one and engage in ongoing dialogue. We have an expectation about how they are operating, what their capitalization is, and their ability to fulfill their obligations in both May and June. As we sit here on the 10th of the month, we're sitting at over 57% of May rents paid, which is a long way toward our expectations. We feel positive about that. If you recall, in April on the 15th, we were sitting at about 53%. We think we have good visibility and a good handle on payments.

Okay, helpful color. Thank you.

And next we'll move to Brian Hawthorne with RBC Capital. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Is EPRT more likely to focus on re-leasing vacant assets or selling them?

Brian, we're equally focused on both, trying to find the best outcome for a specific property regardless. We just want to maximize the economic return of that asset. If it involves finding a new tenant, we'll pursue that route, and if it involves selling it, we'll also pursue that option. One of the benefits of operating in 16 distinct industries is that we have a good roster of operators across all our industries. If an operator struggles at a specific site, there are a dozen others we can contact as a first course of action to fill those sites. If the site works in that current use, we're able to re-tenant it quickly. If it needs to be repurposed, that tends to be a longer, more protracted process and is more likely to result in a sale.

Okay. So then we shouldn't expect to see you giving more improvement on your vacant asset leases?

I mean, listen, if we have vacant properties and it takes TI dollars to get a tenant in there, then that's what we're going to do. I would say we don't have a ton of vacancies, and we have ample capital on our balance sheet to invest in our assets if we determine there is a justifiable economic return.

Got it. Thank you for taking my questions.

You bet, Brian. Thank you.

And our next question comes from Ki Bin Kim with SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Thanks and good morning. So my question is regarding deferrals. A lot of companies are making deferrals for tenants. But I'm curious, if a tenant doesn't pay you back in that one-year timeframe on average, is there a significant penalty that the tenant would incur? Because the larger question and concern is, all these companies, including you, are making deferrals for a tenant, but that's also like a maybe that you will get paid back, right? So I'm just curious if there is a financial penalty that actually would compel a payback in that time period?

Yeah. I think you're thinking about it wrongly, right? It's not about the deferred amount, that's $16 million. That's not material to this balance sheet. It's really when the tenant opens and is able to pay rent on an ongoing basis from stabilized operations, whether that's base rent or base rent plus deferral; that's what you're focused on. I'll go back to nearly three times unit level coverage post pre-crisis, and you can make assumptions about how people respond, and we'll still be in a healthy spot from a coverage perspective. Specifically in terms of deferral, that obligation and the prorating of that obligation as additional rent is cross-referenced to the lease. We own this real estate; we believe we have good assets that are valuable to the tenant. If they don't pay us rent, we take the property back and put in another tenant, which is the best course of action. The rent now includes a deferred amount that's coming back to us. It's really the stabilized cash flow that people should be focused on, which is the ability of these tenants to pay rent regularly.

Okay. Well, so 71% of your tenants are open on a limited basis. Just over the past few weeks, as we've seen some locations open up, have you tracked or do you have a sense of the type of improvement in traffic or business overall your tenants are seeing over the past few weeks?

We've been focused these last 30 days on getting these 88-plus deferrals in place. We have anecdotal information spanning our entire tenant base. Some tenants are doing great; others are doing less well. Our restaurant operators in Kansas City are experiencing no foot traffic, whereas restaurants open in Dallas are experiencing massive foot traffic. The information is too anecdotal to draw any real conclusions from, but it is slowly evolving. The reason you see our deferrals span the whole quarter is that we wanted to give our tenants time to get opened up, recognizing that June rent is earned in May. It’s early; our states are opening up, our industries are reopening. We have a sense of what's opening sooner versus later, but it's really too early to draw material conclusions.

Okay. And just a quick one here. In retail segments, you show a negative 45% change in contractual rents. Is that Art Van? Just curious what else is in that bucket?

Yeah. That's all Art Van.

And next we'll go to Collin Mings with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. I just wanted to go back to earlier comments regarding your plans to invest this year, again largely through capital recycling. Pete, given the high probability that social distancing policies will last well beyond widespread business closures, maybe just expand on how you're thinking about sectors of focus moving forward? And to your point about investment strategies being tested in times like this, anything you want to adjust moving forward? Have you closed on anything specifically here in 2Q so far?

Three questions, Collin. In terms of 2Q, you'll see in our Q later in the day, our subsequent event activity; we've deployed roughly $17 million into investments and sold about $5 million, largely projects we had pre-wired. You can see a good sense of what's going on there. In terms of our investment strategy, we firmly believe our investment strategy is where we want to be from a risk-return perspective. We don't see any material changes in the sectors or industries that we're investing in. Casual dining, furniture, health and fitness; these are all sectors we've been lightening up on since coming public, and those will likely be impacted going forward. You should expect us to continue to lighten up there. I would include movie theaters in that, but our focus on owning service and experience-based real estate that’s granular and bite-sized is still seen as the best approach, providing the best risk-adjusted returns coupled with asset-level liquidity. You shouldn’t expect material changes in our investment strategy as a result of this one-time event.

Got it. And then just one point, I'm not sure if this was directly addressed. But just related to the tenants not paying or tenants that you've agreed to deferrals with, are there any notable trends you review by unit level coverage, credit quality, or is it just strictly focused on sector exposure to the pandemic?

It’s more how that business is specifically impacted by the pandemic than anything else. There’s not a correlation to corporate credit; there’s not a correlation to tenant size. Some of our biggest tenants have had the most aggressive deferral requests. Ultimately, it's the underlying operating fundamentals of that sector that matter.

And maybe to that point, are you having any conversations you feel might be more opportunistic deferrals? Any thoughts there?

Yeah. Not really, Colin. I mean, if you consider our unresolved bucket of 6%, and if you identify 73% of that in Art Van and AMC, the rest is pretty granular. Some of that could be opportunistic, and that may explain why we haven't come to an agreement, but it’s a small amount. I would say we can usually reach a reasonable compromise and that we didn’t have many people being opportunistic. I would also add that from our perspective, as a landlord, we try not to be opportunistic and extract undue economic terms on our side.

Thanks, Pete.

You got it, Collin. Thank you.

And next, we'll move to John Massocca with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead.

Good morning.

Good morning, John.

So I know you can't comment too much on Art Van, but I guess, is there any potential that you could collect some kind of post-petition rents on those properties before the new leases come into effect in 3Q, or has that all essentially been waived as part of your new lease agreements?

I think that's accurate; we have no expectation to receive any capital from the Art Van estate.

Okay. And then building on some earlier commentary on AMC, another net lease REIT decided to move its tenant to a cash accounting basis. Is that something you guys have considered? What would need to happen for you to move toward that accounting method as well, if you haven't already?

To date, we have not accounted on a cash basis. But clearly, that is still in our unresolved bucket. Our determination will largely depend on where we end up on that negotiation. Clearly, they're facing challenges and their ability to pay rent has been severely compromised, and that will weigh in as we evaluate it.

Okay. And then regarding the unresolved bucket, how do you expect that to trend in May? Should that remain flat with what you reported for April?

Yeah. I don't see that bucket growing, largely because most of the difficult issues have been deferred. If anything, I would expect that to trend down. With Art Van included, that’s going to drop significantly. I expect over time other operators will come to the table to reach reasonable agreements. In general, as people gain a better understanding of the situation, they get more comfortable with their operations and honoring their payment obligations.

Makes sense. That's it from me. Thank you very much.

Thanks, John.

We'll move next to Ki Bin Kim with SunTrust.

Thanks. Just a couple of quick ones here. Are you considering making any loans to tenants?

We have not to date. If it makes sense and it's economic, we would look at it. Clearly, we've made more mortgage loans, and so I don't want to say no, but it has to be economic and make sense for us.

Okay. And I think you acquired an early childhood education center in the first quarter. I noticed that cadence went up here at top 10 tenants. I'm assuming the acquisitions, just curious if they were current on their rent?

We tend not to speak specifically on individual tenants, but I believe that we were having a deferral agreement in place with Cadence.

I am showing no questions from the phone lines at this time, so I will turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Great, thank you. And thank you everyone for your time today. I would reiterate, this is certainly an unprecedented challenged time. It's important not to take short-term measures of companies and their assets, and really the proof is as this unfolds, and the portfolios rebound and continue to demonstrate their ability to operate and execute. I'm confident this team will be able to do that. And again, thank you for your interest in this company. Thank you, operator.

And that does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a great day.