Q2 2026 EPR Properties Earnings Call
Speaker #1: Hello, and welcome to the EPR Properties. 26 earnings call. We ask that you please hold all questions until the completion of the formal remarks, at which time you will be given instructions for the question-and-answer session.
Speaker #1: Also, as a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I will now hand the call over to Brian Moriarty, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications.
Speaker #2: Thank you. Thanks for joining us today for our second quarter 2026 earnings call and webcast. Participants on today's call are Greg Silvers, Chairman and CEO, Ben Fox by Executive Vice President and CIO, and Mark Peterson, Executive Vice President and CFO.
Speaker #2: I'll start the call by informing you that this call may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995, identified by such words as "will be intend," "continue," "believe," "may expect," "hope," "anticipate," or other comparable terms.
Speaker #2: Companies' actual financial condition and the results of operations may vary materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Discussion of these factors that could cause results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are contained in the company's SEC filings, including the company's reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q.
Speaker #2: Additionally, this call will contain references to certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe are useful in evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release and supplemental information furnished to the SEC under Form 8-K.
Speaker #2: If you wish to follow along, today's earnings release supplemental and earnings call presentation are all available on the Investor Center page of the company's website www.eprkc.com.
Speaker #2: Now I'll turn the call over to Greg Silvers.
Speaker #3: Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings call and webcast. Over the last several quarters, we've highlighted our focus on accelerating growth, and the second quarter marked a significant step forward in executing that strategy.
Speaker #3: For the quarter revenue increased 10.1%, and FFO has adjusted per share increased 12.7%, compared with the same period in 2025. These results demonstrate the strength of our platform and the continued momentum we are building across the business.
Speaker #3: On the investments front, we set a new post-COVID high for investment activity in a single quarter, totaling more than $440 million. In addition to our previously announced acquisition of the Six Flags Seven Property Portfolio, we further diversified our experiential portfolio with additional investments in attractions and fitness and wellness.
Speaker #3: As part of these investments, we are pleased to welcome Netflix as a new partner through our acquisition of Netflix House and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
It also reinforces our confidence in the portfolio's long-term growth trajectory as we move through the balance of the year.
Turning to the port to our portfolio. Tenant performance remains solid as we maintain coverage of 2 times across the portfolio. The box offices up approximately 10% year to date driven by a compelling. Mix of major Studio tent, pole releases, and lower budget, breakout films that have broadened, attendance and reinforce the enduring appeal of the shared theatrical experience.
Notably titles such as backrooms and obsessions, both from filmmakers who built in who built early audiences on YouTube demonstrate, how new creator-driven voices are expanding the theatrical audience and generating outsized box office results.
Outside of theaters Fitness and Wellness continues to be resilient as consumers, increasingly treated as a protected. Non-discretionary category are eaten plate. Tenants are also reporting steady healthy trends.
We also continue to strengthen our financial position establishing a new 1.6 billion. Credit agreement, that addresses our maturities later this year and ensures our balance sheet remains a source of strength and support of the face of our investment growth.
The durability of our growth.
Finally, I want to note that this summer offered an extraordinary reminder of the power of congregate entertainment. The FIFA World Cup, the largest in history shattered, the all-time attendance record, as millions of fans, traveled across North America, and spent at record levels, not for a thing, but to be present for a moment, this is the same consumer impulse that is at the heart of our business. The demand for shared location-based experiences that cannot be replicated at home.
We built this company around that enduring demand, and this summer afforded a powerful reminder of its continued relevance. Now, I'll turn the call over to Ben, who will review the business in greater detail.
Thank you, Greg.
Is Greg, just noted the second quarter marked, another strong step forward in our growth strategy, building on the momentum. We established at the start of the year.
During the quarter, we invested 440.8 million at an average initial cash yield of approximately, 8 and a half percent, bringing our year to date total Investments to 492.2 million.
This investment volume is inclusive of our previously announced acquisition of 17 Parks formerly operated by 6, Flags as well as 2 additional attractions properties.
A new investment in golf and a new investment in Hot Springs.
On the Netflix house investment, not only is Netflix an A-rated corporate credit that is one of the leading streaming platforms, our partnership with them further validates the powerful role physical experiences play in an increasingly digital world.
Equally noteworthy is the continued diversification of our portfolio and the corresponding decrease, in our theater concentration from 36% reported last quarter to roughly a third of the portfolio today.
Beyond these investments, as of June 30th, we expect approximately $92 million in additional investment for existing experiential development and redevelopment projects, of which approximately $65 million is anticipated to be funded throughout the remainder of 2026.
Given the velocity of investment activity and the first half of the year and the expanded breadth and depth of our pipeline. We're pleased to increase our 2026 investment guidance to 600 million to 700 million.
We continue to expect investment activity for 2026 to be tilted more toward Acquisitions than development.
To reiterate a theme from the first quarter. Our investment pipeline is sourced almost exclusively from non-market Investments generated by direct relationships. Our investment team has established over many years.
And demonstrating that epr is the partner of choice for experiential real estate. Approximately half of our investment pipeline represents repeat relationships.
on market pricing, we continue to see investment yields holding steady despite volatility in the debt Capital markets,
Turning now to an update on the portfolio.
At the end of the second quarter, our portfolio represented 7 and a half billion dollars of gross investment value consisting of 346 properties which were 99% leased or operated.
95% of this value reflects Investments across our core experiential categories.
These 291 properties are operated by 57 clients and continue to be 99%, leased or operated.
The remaining 5% of the portfolio represents our education. Segment comprised of 55 properties. Leased by 5 operators.
At the end of the quarter, these properties were 100% least.
The portfolio remains resilient, with unit-level rent coverage steady at 2 times.
As consumers redefine wellness and human connection as essential rather than discretionary, we expect to see these Trends translate into continued strength in the portfolio.
Within our theater segment.
The second quarter saw a continuation of the outperformance witnessed in the first quarter.
Ticket sales are approximately 10% above the same point in 2025 as the industry demonstrates sustainable growth.
With a special encouraging is that younger movie. Goers are helping fuel the comeback,
% of Millennials saw at least 1 Movie in a cinema during the past 12 months.
Within the Eaton play segment.
Rent coverage is stable with positive Trends emerging at Topgolf from early operational. Enhancements post-separation from Callaway,
Attractions delivered strong performance. In the second quarter with a reversal of some, of the prior years, negative weather impact and the removal of certain geopolitical variables, which adversely impacted 2025,
Our Fitness and Wellness segment continues to deliver solid performance with stabilizing trends at some of our recently renovated and expanded properties.
lastly, our education portfolio continues to remain healthy, despite industry-wide labor, headwinds
Pivoting to dispositions, as referenced on the first quarter's call, the pace of dispositions is moderating given our renewed focus on opportunistic sales relative to defensive sales.
This shift is reflective of the General Health of our portfolio and the outstanding work done by the asset management team and reducing Legacy vacancies.
Accordingly, we are maintaining our disposition guidance of $50 million to $100 million.
In a summary, our company benefits from durable demographic and consumer spending Tailwind.
These same forces, fueling our growth also reinforced the stability of our portfolio.
We see significant opportunities ahead and look forward to continuing to expand and diversify.
With that, I'll turn it over to mark for review of our financial performance.
Thank you. Been today, I will discuss our strong financial performance for the second quarter, provided an update, on our balance sheet and closed, by discussing the increases, in our earnings and investment spending guidance for the year.
FFO as adjusted for the quarter was $1.42 per share versus $1.26 in the prior year, an increase of 12.7%. And AFFO for the quarter was $1.43 per share compared to $1.24 in the prior year, an increase of 15.3%.
Now, moving to a few key variances.
Total revenue for the quarter was 196.1 Million versus 178.1 million in the prior year and increase of 18 million.
This increase was primarily due to the impact of investment spending, as well as rent and interest bumps.
Percentage rents and participating. Interest. For the quarter, were 4.8 million up slightly from 4.6 million in the prior year. As an increase in percentage, rent acred related to the Regal. Lease was partially offset by a decrease in percentage, rent related to our Northern California ski property. That was impacted by unfavorable weather conditions.
Additionally, during the quarter, we recognized 500,000 in defiance fee, income related to the prepayment in full.
Of a 10.8 million. Mortgage note, receivables, secured by an eat and play property.
On the expense side, interest expense, net increased by 5 million due to an increase, in average borrower rings and an in a decrease in capitalized interests versus the prior year.
Partially offsetting. This was an increase in interest income related to short-term Investments.
Lastly equity and loss from joint ventures for the quarter was 1 million compared to 1.7 million. In the prior year, it was due to better performance at our 2 RV joint. Our RV. Park joint ventures
Ffo is adjusted for the 6-month end of June, 30th was 267 per share, compared to 245. In the prior year, an increase of 9% and afo for the same period was 271 per share compared to 244 in the prior year, an increase of 11.1%
During the next slide, I will review some of the company's key credit ratios.
As you can see, our coverage ratios continue to be very strong, with fixed charge coverage at 3.4 times.
And both interest and debt service coverage ratios at 4.0 times.
Our preform, a net debt to annualize adjusted ebit was 5.1 times at quarter end.
Which is at the low end of our targeted range of 5, to 5, 6, 5, 5 to 5.6 times.
Pro forma net debt is calculated by subtracting the estimated net proceeds from all forward sales agreements under our ATM program from net debt.
All covered with an afo payout ratio of 65% for the second quarter.
Now, let's move on to the debt and capital markets activities and our balance sheet, which is in great shape to support our continued growth.
At quarter-end, we had consolidated debt of $3.3 billion, of which $3 billion is either fixed-rate debt or debt that has been fixed through interest rate swaps, with an overall blended coupon of approximately 4.4%.
During the quarter, we entered into two forward sales agreements under our ATM program for initial growth, with sales proceeds of $23.4 million, or an average sale price of $597.70 per share.
No forward sales agreements were settled during the quarter.
And as of quarter end, we had total. Estimated net proceeds, from unsettled, forward sales, agreements of 69.5 million representing, just under 1.2 million. Common shares.
Subsequent to quarter end on July 17th, we were pleased to also enter into a new amended and restated, 1.6 billion credit agreement that among other things extends, the maturity date, and reduces the interest rate on our 1 billion dollar revolving credit facility and establishes a new 600 million, delayed draw Term Loan facility, that is due in 2000.
2032 with interest based on our current credit ratings at. So for plus 115, basis points,
Our bank group, which was expanded as part of this financing, was very supportive of these new facilities. We want to thank them once again for their confidence in our long-term strategy.
Our liquidity position remains strong, and we are well positioned for continued growth.
At quarter end. We had 16.2 million in cash on hand and 640 million available on our 1 billion revolver.
In addition to the amount available on our revolver, as well as positive cash flow and disposition proceeds expected over the back half of the year.
We have the cash available to draw down on our new Term Loan facility, and unsettled, forward sales agreements that I just discussed.
These liquidity sources significantly exceed our anticipated, outflows including those for our expected investment, spending and debt, maturities over the balance of the year.
And this provides us with, with significant financial flexibility, as we move forward.
Turning to guidance, we are increasing our 2026 ffos adjusted per share. Guidance to a range of 541 to 5.57 from a range of 537 to 553 representing an increase versus the prior year of 7.2% at the midpoint
We expect a similar percentage increase in afo per share.
We are also increasing our 2026 guidance for investment spending to a range of 60 to 700 million from a range of 500 million to 600 million.
The increase in earnings guidance. Reflects this increase in investment spending,
As well as other favorable impacts from our investment activity to date, and strong portfolio performance.
We are confirming disposition proceeds of 50 million to 100 million and our percentage. Rent and participating interest income, guidance of 18.5 million to 222.5 million.
We are also confirming our GNA expense guidance of 56 million to 59 million.
Finally, our guidance for consolidated operating properties has been updated by providing a range for both other income and other expense of $40 to $50 million, with no change to that expected net difference.
Guidance details can be found on page 23 of our supplemental.
Now, with that, I'll turn it back over to Greg for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Mark. We are very pleased with the pace and quality of our investments today, and our Focus remains on supporting our strong growth trajectory
The performance and momentum across our businesses, allows us to confidently, increase our investment guidance and demonstrates. Our ability to Source attractive, transactions and attractive transactions in this competitive landscape.
We remain focused on executing our strategy and advancing our growth objectives. In the quarters. Ahead with that. Why don't we open it up for questions?
Thank you.
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Our first question will come from Chalan at Bank of America.
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Janna, you may ask your question.
Thank you. Uh, good morning and congrats on, uh, excellent quarter. Um, maybe starting on the um,
Transaction environment, and the initial yields were about 50 bibs, higher this quarter, I know Ben and your remarks, you said that, you know, pricing is about the same, I guess, maybe if you can help us understand, was it the mix? Was it portfolios. Uh, how are you able to kind of bump that up, 50 basis points?
I think what we've said historically is, you know, in the low to mid 8s. And so we're hovering in the same general vicinity, really? The the mix is holding pretty steady as is the pricing.
And would that be?
Yes.
Great. And then maybe just quickly Mark if you can help us understand, um, the the magnitude of the guidance increase given the strong second quarter outperformance.
Yeah, some of the second quarter performance is timing uh, particularly uh, percent address was a little higher in Q2 than we expected which turns around if you look at our guidance for the year. But overall, if you look at our, our guidance, for the year, we're up 4 cents.
Uh I'd say 3 and a half cents of that or so is due to the investment spending and better performance in the portfolio.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question, will come from John kilichowski, with Wells. Fargo, you'll receive a message on your screen, allowing you to talk, please accept or mute your audio and ask your question John, you may ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Awesome. Thank you. Just want to make sure I got that right. Um, so, you know, your training, well, north of where you issued on the ATM in this quarter and I'm curious today. You know, how does that impact? How you're thinking about funding the rest of your pipeline, you know, with access to more capital and is there room to take up that acquisition pipeline? Now that the second half may look better than the first half just from a you know accessibility of capital capital point of view.
Hey, John. I again, that's something we'll evaluate again. It's in conjunction with finding deals. Not only that we like, but that are, uh, can get done within the time frame. Uh, I think Ben and his team are actively in the market looking and searching out quality deals. Uh I I think Mark and his team are doing a great job of providing a an attractive, Capital source and and capital uh cost. So those 2 work in conjunction and as we've seen when when we have the availability and both of those things, come together. We've we've accelerated. So I would, I would will continue to to look at those opportunities. Yeah. I I just add to that. If you look at our cash flow over the last 6 months, it's pretty balanced in terms of uses and sources. You know, on the use side, we've got investment spending, some Bond maturities, and on the source side, we've got some term, you know, the term loan and disposition proceeds.
Nxs cash flow, uh, and the potential to settle some ATM shares. Those are about equal and we start the year at we start the end of the quarter at 360 million. So we have that 640 million availability in liquidity.
um,
kind of through the end of the year and our, our really, our plan is fully funded as far as leverage. That's the other thing you consider. When looking at Equity, we are at 5.1 times at the end of 630, uh, including our, our forward Equity that number only grows to about 52, uh, raising no more Equity. So, I think, what, that tells you, we have a lot of flexibility here uh, to decide when and how we assess the market for Equity Andor debt. Um, given given our leverage profile given our liquidity, uh, profile over the remainder of the year.
And then, you know, my second 1 Mark you kind of highlighted earlier on the the percentage red side. That 2q ran a little bit above expectation.
Um, but the guide remained flat, so I'm curious what that, you know, is implying now for the second half, especially given the strength that we're seeing in the box office. How is that impacting, you know, your outlook on percentage rent for the rest of the year?
Yeah. So uh June came a little bit higher. Um, particularly for Regal really strong June. Um, we we'll see how July plays out July, is anticipated to be lower than previous year, although strong and there's Innings to play on that. I mean, Spider-Man's out and you know, Friday could be a hundred million dollar day, which moves the needle on percentage rent, so we kept it the same, um but there's potential for some upside uh should Spider-Man perform, you know, over you know really over. Really tomorrow is the last day of the last year. Yeah. Today's previews tomorrow's, but I mean, as Mark said, John that could be in excess of a 100 million and as we've said 100 million. That's we're since we're AC the barrier will fall right to the bottom line of of where we're at. So, uh, I think we we we it's it's, you know, given the short time period. We decided just to not move things. We'll see how it plays out in. In, in the upside could be would be fairly modest. Um, um, but
Could be uh, if things play out like you said over, see how things go tomorrow.
Got it. Thank you. Congrats on the quarter.
Thank you John, thank you 1 thing. I'd add to that is we projected a lot. We projected a lot of increase in the box office. We anticipated a lot of that. So it wasn't like a surprise to us that we did the box office is doing well.
Thank you. Our next question, comes.
Stevenson.
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Uh, good morning guys. Um Mark what are the bigger variables that pushes you towards the 541 of ffoa? Vert at the low end versus the upper end at 55.57?
Yeah, there's quite a few things, you know, you think about percentage rents, they're still Innings to play. It's not just about Regal. Uh, you know, nearly 2/3 of our rent is from a percentage. Rent is from other tenants. Obviously we have operating properties and the third quarter is its primary operating season. So we'll see how that goes up or down. Obviously the timing of Acquisitions. Uh uh uh uh forward Acquisitions and cap rate.
You know, uh, those are some of the variables GNA can vary in terms of incentive comp. So, um, there are several variables that could impact that. But we do feel confident, uh, in that midpoint, um, in terms of our guidance,
Okay, and then Gregor been. Um, you give us any indication as to how the, I know it's early but how the former 6, Flags park assets are doing versus what they were doing over the last couple of years directionally
Speaker #2: year.
Yeah, I I think listen being open a month. What we're really looking at is kind of, uh, kind of almost guest reviews, certainly. And uh, there seems to be some really positive momentum as terms of kind of cleanliness friendliness availability of rides. So the initial indication seemed positive talking with our operator. They seemed still very positive as we talked about any major changes. Since they only got control of the parks in April, will come after the season. So this really was kind of the getting the operations up and and moving and controlling certain things that they can control. But things have been positive so far been, I don't know if you have anything to add on that. That's right, um across those. And then with our other attractions, we are seeing continued strength and a little bit of outperformance relative to the prior year.
Speaker #6: Okay. And then last one for me. How many of these Netflix houses are there today? And is this a concept that they're looking to expand?
Okay. And then, last one for me, um,
Speaker #6: And is there an opportunity for you to expand with them if that's the case?
Speaker #1: I think there's three total. Again, we're Ben and his team are in constant contact again with all of our tenants. And we'll have to just see how it plays out.
Speaker #1: But I think it's evidence of our ability to kind of even when new concepts come in, we're on top of it quickly. And see if it's something that we think grows with us.
Speaker #1: And so we'll continue to stay in contact with them.
Speaker #6: Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the time.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Rob.
Speaker #2: Thanks.
Speaker #3: Thank you. Our next question will come from Nicholas Joseph with City. You'll receive a message on your screen allowing you to talk. Please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question.
Speaker #3: Nicholas, you may ask your question.
Speaker #5: Great. Thank you. The two times coverage has been pretty consistent for several quarters now. There have been any changes in the underlying composition of that metric?
Speaker #2: Yeah, Nick. There definitely is as we talked about the ski was a little softer this year because of the weather. But the theaters are stronger.
Speaker #2: So you have that kind of nice balance. There's also again, it's a pretty tight range, but yeah, you're having some things come a little bit.
Speaker #2: There's no doubt that theaters are coming up a little bit. And where there has been some softness where that ski or we talked about earlier in the first quarter, some softness in eat and play, that's manifesting that.
Speaker #2: But given their size, it's not huge. It's a pretty tight band, but.
Speaker #5: Thanks. That's very helpful. And then maybe just more broadly, as you have obviously a lot of exposure across different consumers and different part of the economic spectrum, what are you seeing from the consumer right now just on the relative strength across different economic classes?
Speaker #2: It's really interesting. It's surprisingly resilient. I mean, if you think about ski being kind of a higher end, again, that's really been a reflection of lack of ski of snow, but it's the hanging in there.
Speaker #2: And you saw Vail reported that season passes were down 10%, but that's still relatively strong. I think if you look at the theater business, the thing that we're always and continue to be mindful of is not only are ticket sales up, but the food and beverage spend continues to be strong.
Speaker #2: And so I think it's really it's been kind of a very, very positive kind of feeling. The other side of that is, like I said, we've seen continued strength.
Speaker #2: I mean, with that consumer, and you see that reflective in like AMC's recent reporting yesterday about the best quarter ever that they had. And so I think it seems I would characterize it as resilient, but I mean, Ben, I don't know if you have any other additional thing to add to that.
Speaker #4: That's right. And I think that resilience is really across the board. I mean, even middle-income consumers are demonstrating the propensity to spend on experiential activities.
Speaker #4: And our portfolio is benefiting from that consumer spending.
Speaker #5: Thanks.
Speaker #3: Thank you. Our next question will come from Mike Carroll with RBC Capital Markets. You'll receive a message on your screen allowing you to talk.
Speaker #3: Please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question. Mike, you may ask your question.
Speaker #5: Yep. Thanks. I want to circle back to guidance and Mark's comments on the recent increase. I know I think you said that the increase was largely due to the recent investment activity in the outperformance due to better operating performance.
Speaker #5: Where is the better operating performance coming from? I mean, if I just look at the individual guidance lines, it looks like the percentage rents and the other income and expenses were unchanged.
Speaker #5: So you just are you expecting that those to come in at the higher end and you're just trying to be conservative on that front, or was the increase largely driven by the acquisition activity?
Speaker #1: When I talk about performance portfolio, we build in a bad debt reserve or a general reserve, if you will, for things like bad debt.
Speaker #1: And that's really coming in better than expected. So I'd say part of that increase is investment activity. And when I talk about portfolio performance, really, less issues in the portfolio than we conservatively estimated.
Speaker #5: And Mark, can you give us a little detail on that? Like how what is the typical bad debt that you expect? I'm assuming that's in what you just assume is the historical averages and where is that coming in right now?
Speaker #1: Yeah. So we called out in the original plan about 50 to 75 basis points. It's probably more like in terms of 40 basis points.
Speaker #1: In terms of when I call bad debt, bad debt or anything that impacts earnings, it's lower than anticipated.
Speaker #5: Okay. Great. And then I know also you said that percentage rents were higher in QQ 26 than you expected, and it was largely due to timing.
Speaker #5: I guess what drove that? Did you just have some tenants that paid earlier and that's not going to reoccur in the back half of the year?
Speaker #5: So QQ was just abnormally high. I know you talked a little bit about the regalese, but that happens every year. And I don't know if I would say that's temporary.
Speaker #5: It seems like if it's from that, that would be like a true increase.
Speaker #1: Well, regal is a little different in that it depends on the dollar value of box office during the quarter. So in June, June this year was bigger than June last year.
Speaker #1: And so we hit the threshold earlier and accrued more into June. July could be strong, but it's still expected to be less than a year ago.
Speaker #1: So overall, we'll see how July shakes out, but we're kind of budgeting planning on sort of as we planned. So there's a little bit of timing between June and July versus the prior year, and it's all about box office.
Speaker #1: That's the primary thing driving the year-over-year timing with respect to regal, which is the primary tenant that's causing that change.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Again, if you look, Michael, June was quite a bit bigger than June last year in July. This year is a little bit smaller than July of last year.
Speaker #2: So that flips the timing of when you get that. So that timing just kind of rolled in that way. But the net net to the year is virtually kind of where we projected.
Speaker #1: Exactly. Which is up over prior year because we anticipated a box office increase.
Speaker #5: Okay. And then where is the box office coming in at versus your expectations? I mean, is it exceeding your expectations right now?
Speaker #1: Again, as I said, right now, we would say that we're pretty close to where we're our expectations were for the regal lease. Now, the overall year again is up.
Speaker #1: And so that's positive. But remember, half the year is last year for regal. So again, some of that was overcoming what was some softness in the second half of last year.
Speaker #1: With outperformance this year, but our team does a really good job of kind of where that's at. I think as I said earlier, our variable really will be kind of how well I think Spider-Man does plus or minus.
Speaker #1: It's not going to be a huge variable. I mean, we're talking Mark, half a million tops and then so it's not a huge number, but our guys are really good at projecting this and I think depending upon how that first kind of opening days, what they're talking now, Spider-Man could easily be the best opening of the year so far, which is and also the best opening since 2019.
Speaker #1: So no, we didn't forecast that good. So if it comes in, we could have some upside to that. Thank you, Martin.
Speaker #3: Our next question will come from Spencer Glimcher with Green Street. You will receive a message on your screen allowing you to talk. Please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question.
Speaker #3: Spencer, you may ask your question.
Speaker #6: Of your investment opportunity set, can you just give us a sense of what you're seeing in terms of competition for assets and what segments or industries are you seeing more of in terms of buying opportunities irrespective of them getting across the finish line and being averaged to portfolio?
Speaker #2: Yeah. Similar to last quarter, we're really seeing opportunities across all of our verticals. Probably if you were to kind of drill a layer down, maybe a slight pickup in fitness and wellness broadly speaking.
Speaker #2: And the competitive landscape remains very consistent as well where we're not seeing a lot of the traditional net lease rates or other net lease investors.
Speaker #2: It's primarily family offices or alternative forms of capital.
Speaker #6: Okay. Great. And then you also talked about opportunistic divestments. So can you just provide some color on whether there's still a continuation of developer interest and theater assets?
Speaker #6: Because I know you've had success in the past divesting these theaters for redevelopment or densification purposes.
Speaker #2: Yeah. That dynamic persists. We do have very high-quality real estate throughout the portfolio. And then also within some of our segments, notably in education, which we're looking to reduce there are opportunities there where there's strong investor interest.
Speaker #1: I think, Spencer, one of the challenges, just to be candid with you, is they've done a great job of selling things that are vacant that we only have one vacant theater.
Speaker #1: Now, these are leased theaters. So we would have to either, A, pull them out of a master lease or get the tenant to give up their lease rights.
Speaker #1: We get calls every day about the quality of some of these real estates where people would like to redevelop them. It's just an attaching that from its existing lease, sometimes creates more challenges.
Speaker #6: Thank you.
Speaker #3: Our final question will come from John Kilichowsky with Wells Fargo. You will receive a message on your screen allowing you to talk. Please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question.
Speaker #3: John, you may ask your question.
Speaker #2: Sophie, I don't know that John is there, so?
Speaker #6: No problem. We have one final question from Upal Rana with Key Bank Capital Markets. You will receive a message on your screen. Please unmute and ask your question.
Speaker #5: Great. Thank you. Just want to go back to the funding your future investments. Mark, you talked about this a little bit already, but how are you thinking about the preference or the ideal mix on your funding strategy going forward?
Speaker #5: And I also wanted to get an update on your appetite, the issue more equity. Given the higher share price as you're issuing so far has been a little bit more on the modest side.
Speaker #1: Yeah. We generally tend to think about it for incremental investments, debt and equity kind of 60% equity, 40% debt roughly. So that's how we look at it.
Speaker #1: The good news is with our leverage and our liquidity, we're not compelled to raise equity. That said, we continue to look at the pipeline continues to be strong.
Speaker #1: And it does make sense at this price. It is accretive to incrementally raise equity at today's price to fund additional pipeline. But I think the bottom line is that incremental capital will be used for incremental investing.
Speaker #1: Because we're not really compelled to fund the current plan using equity.
Speaker #5: Okay. Great. That was helpful. And then maybe just on top golf, you mentioned there were some encouraging improvements from positive trends there, from the operational enhancements.
Speaker #5: Maybe you can talk a little bit more on what you're seeing there.
Speaker #2: Yeah, Upal. The new CEO, David, he's taken several steps to address different opportunities he saw within that business. And they range from a headcount reduction to create operational efficiencies as well as better utilization of the existing footprint.
Speaker #2: And a lot of those initiatives are starting to bear fruit. And we expect that trend to continue in a positive direction as more and more of those initiatives take hold.
Speaker #1: Yeah. I think Upal, one of the things that they specifically we've followed up on is there's more thinking about dynamic pricing and how that affects during the day and early in the evening.
Speaker #1: And they've seen that show up with greater foot traffic, with foot traffic counts. So those are always kind of real positives as we as data points that we see.
Speaker #1: With that said, I want to reiterate that the strength of our portfolio continues to be very, very resilient. And so we feel very good about where we're at.
Speaker #1: It's just there's a lot of talking. So when we see positives, we want to share that.
Speaker #5: Okay. Great. Thank you.
Speaker #1: Thank you.
Speaker #3: There are no more questions. So I'll now turn the call back over to Greg Silvers, Chairman and CEO, for any closing remarks.