Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. (EPRT)
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Sep 10, 2026, 11:48 AM EDT - Market open
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Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Jul 29, 2021

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and Welcome to Essential Properties Realty Trust second quarter 2021 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. This conference is being recorded, and a replay of the call will be available two hours after the completion of the call for the next 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. Thank you. You may begin.

Dan Donlan
SVP and Head of Capital Markets, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for Essential Properties' second quarter 2021 conference call. Here with me today to discuss our operating results are Pete Mavoides, our President and CEO, Greg Seibert our COO, and Mark Patten, our CFO. During this conference call, we may 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 now 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 our expectations are disclosed from time to time in greater detail in the company's filings with the SEC and in yesterday's earnings release. With that, Pete, please go ahead.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thank you, Dan, and thank you to everyone who is joining us today for your interest in Essential Properties. The second quarter was another strong quarter for us on all fronts, starting with the portfolio. With collections of 99% in the second quarter and July collections at 100%, our portfolio has returned to pre-pandemic levels. While we continue to monitor how COVID could potentially impact our portfolio, our tenants have largely adapted to the current realities of the pandemic and emerged as stronger operators. With just two vacant properties at quarter end and one vacant property as of today, we have effectively repositioned all properties previously leased to tenants that did not survive the pandemic.

With that in mind, over the trailing 12 months that ended June 30th, we experienced recoveries of 87% on all re-leasing activity, which is a strong indicator of not only the quality of our real estate, but our disciplined focus on owning fungible single-tenant properties at an appropriate basis. In terms of investments, our industry relationships, which we worked to cultivate and strengthen during the pandemic, drove the bulk of our growth this quarter as 98% of our investments being relationship business. We continue to deploy capital at high levels relative to our historical pace. During the quarter, we invested $223 million into 94 properties at a weighted average cash cap rate of 7.1%, with 88% of investments being originated through direct sale-leasebacks and 83% containing master lease provisions.

On the capital markets, with the second quarter marking the third anniversary of our IPO, we achieved several milestones, including the receipt of two investment-grade issue ratings from S&P and Moody's, the completion of our $400 million inaugural 10-year unsecured public bond offering, and our asset base becoming 100% unencumbered with the full payoff and retirement of our ABS notes. As a net lease REIT that intends to build and maintain a portfolio of long-dated leases, we are thrilled to have access to the public unsecured bond market, as we can now better match fund our debt obligations with our lease maturity schedule. We remained active on the equity issuance front with a $193 million follow-on offering in April and $15 million of gross ATM issuance.

With quarter end net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDARE of 4.6x , we have ample capacity to continue to capitalize on our robust investment pipeline. Turning to the portfolio more specifically, we ended the quarter with investments in 1,325 properties that were 99.8% leased to 281 tenants operating in 17 industries. Our weighted average lease term stood at 14 years, with 4.1% of our ABR expiring over the next five years. Our weighted average unit level coverage ratio was 3.2 x, which improved versus last quarter's coverage of 3.0 x. As we have previously mentioned, our traditional credit statistics, which focus on implied credit ratings and unit-level coverage, remain negatively skewed by the pandemic-related shutdowns that occurred last year.

However, with most of our tenants reporting trailing 12 months financials to us with a one-quarter lag, we expect these statistics to experience solid improvement next quarter when the depths of the pandemic, the Q2 2020, are no longer in the reporting period. Looking out to the balance of the year, we anticipate our portfolio to remain highly occupied and our focused and growing pipeline to generate accretive and attractive investment opportunities. When coupling this positive outlook for the back half of 2021 with our strong second quarter performance and our current capital position, we are raising our 2021 guidance range for AFFO per share to $1.30-$1.32. This compares to $1.24-$1.28 previous.

We continue to believe our strong AFFO growth, combined with our well-covered dividend of 3.4% and our commitment to prudently manage our balance sheet and portfolio risk, offers investors a compelling total return opportunity. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Greg Seibert , our COO, who will take you through the portfolio and investment activity in greater detail. Greg?

Greg Seibert
COO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thanks, Pete. During the second quarter, we invested $223 million into 94 properties through 34 separate transactions at a weighted average cash cap rate of 7.1%. These investments were made in 11 different industries, with over 65% of our activity coming from quick service restaurants, medical/dental, early childhood education, and casual dining. The weighted average lease term of our investments this quarter was 13.5 years. The weighted average annual rent escalation was 1.4%. The weighted average unit level coverage was 2.7 x, with the average investment per property being $2.4 million. Consistent with our investment strategy, 88% of our second quarter investments were originated through direct sale-leasebacks, which are subject to our lease form with ongoing financial reporting requirements, and 83% contain master lease provisions.

Looking ahead, we are seeing increased competition from existing and new market participants as there is a growing appreciation for the durability of our focused industries and middle market tenancy. As a result, we are experiencing cap rate compression as we seek to protect and service our relationships. From an industry perspective, quick service restaurants are our largest industry at nearly 14% of ABR, closely followed by car washes at 13.8%, early childhood education at 13.6%, and medical/dental at 12.5%. We continue to view these four business segments as tier one industries for Essential Properties, and therefore, they are likely to remain our highest concentration industries for the foreseeable future.

Of note, while much of our investment activity over the last 12 months has been focused on more pandemic-resistant industries, we have started to selectively invest in proven operators of profitable locations in both the entertainment and casual dining industries, which continue to experience strong rebounds in revenues and profits. From a tenant concentration perspective, no tenant represented more than 2.5% of our ABR at quarter end, and our top 10 tenants account for just 19.5% of ABR, which was down 70 basis points versus last quarter. It is a direct benefit of our middle market focus, which offers a significantly more expansive opportunity set than a strategy concentrated on publicly traded companies and investment grade-rated credits. In terms of dispositions, we sold nine properties this quarter for $19.6 million in net proceeds.

When excluding vacant properties and transaction costs, we achieved a 7.1 weighted average cash yield on these dispositions, which had a weighted average unit level coverage ratio of 1.8x. As we mentioned in the past, owning liquid properties is an important aspect of our investment discipline, as it allows us to proactively manage industries, tenants, and unit-level risk within the portfolio. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Mark Patten, our CFO, who will take you through the balance sheet and financials for the fourth quarter. Mark?

Mark Patten
CFO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thanks, Greg. Good morning, everyone. We certainly did have a strong second quarter. The notable elements of our reported operating results for the second quarter of 2021 are as follows. Total revenue was up $18.6 million, or 48.2%, versus the same period in 2020, totaling $57.1 million for Q2 2021, which reflects the benefits of a full quarter of our $198 million of investments in Q1 2021. More broadly, our total investment activity since we restarted our external growth in Q3 2020, which totaled $814 million at a weighted average cash cap rate of 7.1%. In addition, our total revenues reflected approximately $3.1 million in revenue from our determination to move a number of tenants back to an accrual basis.

The one-time adjustment, which was largely related to our five properties leased to AMC, resulted in the recognition of approximately $2.1 million of base rent revenue that was owed but not recognized in prior periods, as well as another $1 million of related straight line rent. In total, this adjustment added nearly $0.03 per share to FFO and just under $0.02 per share to AFFO. I'll note that this adjustment was based on our assessment regarding the probability of each tenant's performance pursuant to their lease, both current and future rent payments, including any deferral arrangements, and was further supported by our evaluation of the tenant's operations and financial condition as of quarter end, and an assessment of operating dynamics in their industries. Total G&A was $6.5 million in Q2 2021 versus $6.3 million for the same period in 2020.

That's a 3.5% increase, which was largely due to an increase in non-cash stock compensation expense, offset by increased efficiencies related to cash components of G&A, including amounts incurred for professional services as well as certain outsourced services. Our G&A continues to scale as our cash basis G&A as a percentage of total revenue was 11% for Q2 2021 versus 15% for Q2 2020. Net income was $23.4 million in the quarter. That's up 124% from Q2 2020. Our FFO totaled $37.2 million for the quarter or $0.32 per fully diluted share, a 23% increase over the same period in 2020. Our AFFO was up $14.6 million or $0.34 per fully diluted share. That's an increase of 26% versus Q2 2020. As Pete mentioned, our collection levels were nearly 100% in Q2 2021 and hit 100% in July 2021.

The impact of the pandemic gratefully should be largely behind us. With regard to our recognized deferred rent, we collected substantially all of the $1.3 million that was owed in the second quarter, and our total collections of agreed-upon deferred rent stands at roughly 50% of the total amount deferred and recognized in our results. Turning to our balance sheet, the elements I'd like to highlight are the following. You really have to start with another great quarter of investments by our team, totaling $223.2 million of investments in 94 properties, which contributed to our gross income producing assets reaching $2.9 billion at quarter end. As Pete noted, we were very pleased to be in a position to access the public unsecured debt markets for the first time, having obtained investment-grade ratings from Moody's and S&P. This was certainly a significant milestone for our company.

Our upsized $400 million unsecured notes issuance allowed us to pay off the approximately $171 million outstanding on our secured ABS notes and pay down the $138 million outstanding on the revolver. Worth repeating that as a result of the public unsecured bond issuance, our debt position is 100% unsecured and our asset base is 100% unencumbered. We were also certainly pleased to pay off the ABS notes, which carried a 4.19% coupon with our public unsecured bonds that have a coupon of 2.95% and an effective rate of approximately 3.1% when taking into account the settlement of a forward rate lock agreement we entered into when we decided to issue these bonds.

From an equity perspective, Pete noted the primary activity for the quarter was the overnight offering we did in early April, which generated net proceeds of $185 million, and our ATM program, which generated $15 million in net proceeds in the latter part of the quarter. As Pete also noted, our net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDARE was 4.6 x at quarter end. In addition, our total liquidity stood at a strong $530 million. As a result, our balance sheet remains well-positioned to support our investment pipeline and future growth goals.

Lastly, I'll reiterate Pete's important note that the current pipeline for the third quarter, our outlook for portfolio performance in the back half of 2021, and our strong outperformance this quarter provided us with the basis for our decision to raise 2021 AFFO per share guidance to a range of $1.30 to $1.32, which is a 4% increase at the midpoint from our prior increased guidance. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Pete.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thanks, Mark. We're excited that the operating environment and capital markets have allowed us to return to pre-pandemic levels and move forward with capitalizing on our robust pipeline of accretive investment opportunities in order to drive attractive earnings growth. More importantly, we believe our disciplined and differentiated investment strategy has created an incredibly resilient net lease portfolio that should continue to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns as we grow into the future. With that, operator, let's please open the call for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your light is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Nate Crossett with Berenberg. Please proceed with your question.

Nate Crossett
Equity Research Analyst, Berenberg

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just on the pipeline, I was wondering if you could characterize the deal flow a bit. You mentioned heightened competition. How should we be viewing this in terms of the amount of deal flow you can execute on? What's the size of the pipeline right now? What's kind of the outlook that we should be baking in for pricing kind of going into the back half of the year? Are we still looking at over 7%? Where do you kind of see that trending?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thanks, Nate, for the question, and good morning. Listen, as I often say, we never really have more than a 90-day visibility on our forward pipeline. As you know, our transactions tend to have that 90-day transaction cycle. Obviously, we had a strong quarter, and we feel good about what we're seeing into the third quarter. The pipeline remains robust. We tend not to give investment guidance and really point people to our historical average as an indicator of what we're likely to do. I think clearly, if you look back, we've been pretty consistent in that regard. That said, it's been elevated over the last couple of quarters as we've seen good opportunities to transact, and that remains our position.

In terms of cap rate, we tend to transact maybe a low of a 6 and a high of a 7.50, and kind of where that blends out to in any given quarter is really an output of selection of deals and industries, the size of the credits, and a lot of factors. We have been guiding people with the expectation in the low 7s. I wouldn't expect a material deviation from that.

Nate Crossett
Equity Research Analyst, Berenberg

Okay. That's helpful. What about just the lease escalation that you're able to underwrite in these sale-leasebacks and acquisitions? Is the heightened competition making it harder to get higher escalation in those contracts? How do you see that kind of playing out over time?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah. The escalations are really just one part of the economics of the investments, and to the extent that we're having competition, it's impacting the overall economics, which flows into the initial cap rate as well as the bumps in the out years. We still expect to kind of be in that, call it 1.4, 1.6. I think that's pretty center mass of market. Again, that's going to vary given the selection of deals and the nature of deals in any given quarter. We get bumps in the majority of the deals we do, and we work hard to get the best bumps that we can.

Nate Crossett
Equity Research Analyst, Berenberg

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thanks, Nate. Appreciate the questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Katy McConnell with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Parker Decraene
Equity Research Associate, Citi

Hey, guys. This is Parker Decraene actually on for Katy. Just a couple of quick ones from me. First off, I think last quarter you guys discussed seven auto service vacancies that you came off or that came back to you through termination. I was just wondering, at this point, I think you leased eight or nine assets this quarter. Were all of those seven assets included in that nine? Just maybe you can give some color on sort of the resolution of that.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Listen, we give plenty of color on the resolutions of our re-tenanting activity and our re-leasing stats at 87%. The one vacancy we have is not related to an auto service operator. You can infer that we got all of those sites released and given that we released nine and seven of them were related to that tenant, I think that's pretty darn good clarity of what happened there.

Parker Decraene
Equity Research Associate, Citi

Okay. Secondly, I guess I just want to understand from sort of the cash accounting basis, if there's any other tenants that you guys still have under a cash accounting sort of revenue basis, and what the total accrued rent balance might be for some of those in aggregate.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Mark, why don't you tackle that?

Mark Patten
CFO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

All right. Yeah. Appreciate that question. It's just a handful of tenants. It represents maybe a little bit more than a penny of AFFO deferred, not recognized that has the potential to be reversed sometime in the future.

Parker Decraene
Equity Research Associate, Citi

Okay. Thanks. That's all for me.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Greg McGinniss with Scotiabank. Please proceed with your question.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

Hey, good morning. Greg, you're now averaging, looks like $200 million of acquisitions a quarter for the last year. Does that feel like a sustainable level? Does the increased market participation impact volumes, or should we just maybe cap rates to compress a bit? How should we think about that?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Listen, as I've said, we always point to that trailing eight quarter indicator average as an indicator of what to expect. I'd stop short of setting the expectation that we're going to transact $800 million a year. That is elevated. We certainly have said that we're leaning into acquisitions given the current market. I'd stop short of setting that as the go-forward expectation. The increase in competition, it doesn't really necessarily create deal flow for us in that deal flow is created by the overall economic environment and the M&A environment and how our relationships are growing. It does manifest itself in terms of cap rate, and I think you've seen our cap rates kind of drift down over the last couple of years, and we're fighting hard to stop that drift.

I would say our cost of capital, fortunately, has improved along with that, such that the spreads we're investing at remain pretty attractive.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

Okay, thanks. On the acquisitions, how much of what was closed last quarter and the last year were driven by prior relationships versus new tenants?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Listen, we provide that on a quarterly basis. Generally, just looking at page eight of our sup, we define prior relationships as guys that we've done deals with in the past. That tends to be in the mid to high 80s.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

Okay. Yeah. I recall you guys used to provide it. I guess I just missed it this time around.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

Thank you.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

I think that's in our investor presentation.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

Yeah.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Sorry. Hey, listen, this quarter it was 98%.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

Yeah.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

It remains a main driver of our investment activity, our relationships, and our ability to kind of work with those guys reliably.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

Okay. Just a quick follow-up on that point. It looks like new top tenants, you got Spare Time and Harps. Looks like you own about 20% of their total stores. I'm just curious how that 20% number maybe compares to the average tenant in your portfolio, just to try and get some sense for how much more you can mine those relationships. If it's really just based on the growth of those tenants having new stores.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah. Listen, I would say, the percent of stores we own from any one tenant can range from 5% to 100%.

I would stop short of giving you an average there. As it relates to Spare Time and Harps, they've been existing relationships of ours and we've been able to add units over time and populate them into our top 10. Obviously, it's a consideration as we manage our overall exposure, both with individual names and our top 10, where unfortunately at times we become full with tenants. That tends to get offset by a growing denominator that allows us to do deals down the road. When you're doing 98% of your business with people you've transacted with in the past, you want to continue to serve those relationships and take advantage of being the embedded capital provider because that provides synergies, cost effectiveness, and ultimately better economics both for us and the tenant.

Greg McGinniss
Director, Scotiabank

All right. Well, great. Thanks so much, Pete.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

You got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sheila McGrath with Evercore. Please proceed with your question.

Sheila McGrath
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

I guess good morning. G&A as a percent of revenue was just over 11% as you highlighted. That's the best read since the IPO. Just what is your target to that metric? Is second quarter G&A a good run rate, or do you envision having to add meaningfully to personnel?

Mark Patten
CFO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah. Thanks, Sheila. I guess what I'd say, look, we've achieved some pretty good efficiencies in our cash G&A. I think the back half of the year, though, as conferences and travel starts to pick up, we might see a slight increase in the back half on the cash G&A. I think as a percentage of revenue, it's going to continue to trend down. I think in terms of headcount, I think we're pretty well staffed for handling the business that we see ahead of us.

Sheila McGrath
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

Okay, great. You guys have the benefit of looking at rent coverage metrics for your tenants. Are there any businesses worth noting that have already returned to pre-pandemic levels? Which sectors have had the quickest recovery, and which sectors have been kind of the laggards?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah, Sheila, I'll tackle that. There's certainly some of our sectors were barely impacted by the pandemic. I would say, our quick service operators, our car washes, auto service, convenience stores probably had the lowest level of impact. The greatest level of impact and longest level impact, I would say, clearly in the movie theaters, which everyone knows and understand. Also the gyms have been slow but have recovered. The early childhood education guys are still kind of ramping back up to pre-pandemic levels as the country isn't at a full return to work status, which we hope to see in September. Certainly there's been a wide dispersion of performance. We feel good that collecting $1.00 on the dollar and they're all open and operating.

Sheila McGrath
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

Great. Last question. On AFFO guidance, you moved it higher. Can you remind us your thoughts on the dividend? Are you managing to a certain payout ratio, or just your thoughts on the dividend outlook?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah. We've said we like to maintain, or the board like to maintain a payout ratio in the 70% range, and that, I think historically we've been growing the dividend rationally alongside our AFFO per share growth. The board looks at that every quarter, and we'll continue to do that.

Sheila McGrath
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

Thanks a lot.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

You got it, Sheila. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Caitlin Burrows
VP, Goldman Sachs

Hi. Good morning. I was wondering maybe if we could talk about the watchlist. It seems like the portion of the portfolio under one times coverage is larger than it's been in the past, but the total coverage is actually higher than in the past, over three times now. Could you go through what this means for your watchlist, and how much is the end of 2020 still dragging down those coverage levels? Have you already seen some improvement in the first half of 2021, or are those tenants that may continue to struggle?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah, Caitlin. As we said on the call, those statistics are really severely impacted by COVID, obviously, with second quarter 2020 being all the shut down for many of our tenants. Those numbers are not adjusted for any sort of rent deferral. What you see in the trailing 12 numbers is a quarter of essentially no revenue burdened with full rent. We think those numbers are materially going to improve as those periods burn off. I would say that our watchlist is much more refined than just coverage. We're looking at these guys on a quarter-over-quarter basis and a capitalization basis and our real estate. Our overall watchlist is in a very good spot, and we feel good about where our tenants are, and that those statistics are really just a legacy of the COVID pandemic.

Caitlin Burrows
VP, Goldman Sachs

Got it. Just to clarify, it seems like with the overall coverage level of 3.2 x then that there are others that are just doing really well. Is that fair?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah, there's others that are doing really well, and you also have significant investment activity being added to those statistics, and which is influenced by the selection of industries that we do. There are people that are doing very well and have emerged from the pandemic as really strong operators.

Caitlin Burrows
VP, Goldman Sachs

Got it. Maybe just, it looks like the line for interest income on loans and direct financing leases has been increasing, and I think that's a result of the loan receivable portfolio growing. Just wondering if you could go through some of the details of that. Is it just a nuance of certain acquisitions and investments that makes them get classified a certain way versus regular NOI, or is that interest income incremental to NOI?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

That interest income is incremental to NOI. There are certain circumstances where we invest loans. We loan against assets that we would otherwise want to own in our portfolio, but for whatever reason, seller motivation, tax concerns, or structuring reasons, we can't get the ownership. We will make a loan, and that loan tends to be a great investment for us in that it's at a loan-to-value that's less than our traditional sale-leaseback, but at economics that are generally similar. The loan book has been a modest part of our investment activity. It should continue to be a modest part, but fortunately, we've seen some good opportunities to make some loans over the past year, and we've done that.

Caitlin Burrows
VP, Goldman Sachs

Got it. Okay, thanks.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of John Massocca with Ladenburg. Please proceed with your question.

John Massocca
VP of Equity Research, Ladenburg

Good morning.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Morning, John.

John Massocca
VP of Equity Research, Ladenburg

Maybe just going back to the two new additions to the top tenant list, specifically with kind of Spare Time. Can you maybe give a little color on the underwriting for that tenant? What kind of got you comfortable with a kind of more bowling alley-focused family entertainment center, and how they've bounced back given similar kind of companies were hit pretty hard by the initial wave of the pandemic?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Sure. Listen, John, I think our underwriting for that individual tenant is going to be consistent with our underwriting for any tenant, which is taking a look at the corporate credit, taking a look at the operations, taking a look at the units, how they perform, and valuing the real estate at a point that we think is fair. Spare Time is a great tenant. It's a great company, a great family-owned company that we've been doing business with for a while, and have great comfort in their ability as an operator. The sites that we own and the sites that we invested in during the quarter have rebounded and are doing really well and really benefiting from some pent-up demand for people wanting to get out and be entertained and do things. We like the family entertainment business.

We think Spare Time is a great operator in that space.

John Massocca
VP of Equity Research, Ladenburg

You had maybe Spare Time assets in the portfolio pre-pandemic, though? Is that a fair assumption based on what you said?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

I think I said that, yeah.

John Massocca
VP of Equity Research, Ladenburg

Then with Harps, maybe just any color there, I guess, given just what's kind of the financial outlook for them, kind of the financial backing for that tenant, particularly given kind of the competitiveness of the grocery space?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah. Harps is, I believe, like a 112-unit regional grocer that is well-capitalized with a strong balance sheet. The sites we've purchased are well-located sites with strong sales and strong profitability. I know it's a competitive industry, but when you're doing a sale-leaseback, you're buying sites that are existing and have long track records that we can underwrite, and that was the case with the sites we bought with Harps.

John Massocca
VP of Equity Research, Ladenburg

Okay. Every other question I had has been covered. Thanks very much for the time.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Thank you, John. Appreciate the questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Lucas with Capital One Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Chris Lucas
Senior Managing Director, Capital One Securities

Hi, Pete. Hi, guys. Just following up on a couple of questions. Maybe if we could go back to the less than one time unit level coverage. Pete, I appreciate the sort of trailing 12-month issue. I guess if you looked at it on a annualized most recent quarter basis, do you guys have that number as to what it looks like less than one time? Just kind of trying to figure out what the sort of current status really is.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah. We do, and that's not a number we disclosed or not a number we're going to disclose. It's largely varied across industries. I gave some commentary on how those industries are performing. As we said, we think that'll trend back to a normalized level and it's not something concerning to us. The fact that everyone's paying currently gives us good comfort that the sites are recovered and the tenants are committed to the sites that we own.

Chris Lucas
Senior Managing Director, Capital One Securities

Okay. Then as it relates to sort of the transactions that you have completed, just kind of curious as to whether or not you have insight into what I would call the source of that. In other words, is it related to M&A that the tenant has gone through that is creating the opportunity, or is it more just sort of their organic unit growth or legacy portfolio that they are disposing of and entering into sale-leasebacks? How does that compare to sort of the pre-pandemic?

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Yeah. I would say both. The organic growth tends not to be a big driver of investment activity for us. They tend to be one in two units over time. The two sources of business for us are gonna be M&A, where an operator is buying a competitor or rolling up and that is a big driver of business for us. The other is where an operator is harvesting assets on their balance sheet, harvesting, doing a sale-leaseback of real estate assets to meet another capital need. I haven't broken down the source or the motivation, the seller motivation for the recent quarter activity, but I would say it's probably skewed 60/40 towards M&A.

Chris Lucas
Senior Managing Director, Capital One Securities

Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I had this morning.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Great. Thank you very much, Chris. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Pete for closing comments.

Pete Mavoides
President and CEO, Essential Properties Realty Trust

Great. Well, we're really excited to report this quarter. It was a strong quarter for us, and we have great momentum going into the third. Thank you all for your participation today and your questions. Have a great day. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.