I will now hand the conference over to Patrick Wernig, CFO. Patrick, please go ahead.
Thank you. During the course of this call, we will make forward-looking statements which are based on our beliefs and assumptions. Actual results will be affected by known and unknown factors that are beyond our control or ability to predict. Our assumptions are not a guarantee of future performance, and some will prove to be incorrect. For a more detailed description of some potential risks, please refer to our SEC filings, which can be found at fcpt.com. All the information presented on this call is current as of today, April 30, 2026. In addition, reconciliation to non-GAAP financial measures presented on this call, such as FFO and AFFO can be found in the company's supplemental report. Please note if you are a research analyst you have been emailed a meeting ID which is 865913566.
We'll repeat that at the end of our prepared remarks. That pin will allow you to ask questions during the Q&A session. With that, I will turn the call over to Bill.
Good morning. Following my initial remarks, Josh will comment on our investment activity, and Patrick will discuss financial results and capital position. Q1 marked a continuation of the momentum from 2025 and a strong start to 2026. AFFO per share grew by 3.4% versus the prior year period, continuing our focus on steady risk-adjusted growth. During Q1, we acquired $26 million of net lease properties at a 6.8% blended cash cap rate, equivalent to a 7.3% GAAP cap rate. This is marginally lower volume versus the start of 2025. I'd emphasize we're seeing a lot of attractive opportunities and feel good about the strength of our pipeline. Seasonally, we tend to see fewer deals close in Q1 versus later in the year. Q2 is shaping out that way so far.
Over the last 12 months, we've acquired $288 million of properties. We're also excited to have closed on a new $200 million term loan with seven-year tenor earlier this month. The term loan all-in rate is 4.9%, which represents 200 basis points of spread to historical acquisition yields. We will be able to invest that money creatively. Our rent coverage in Q1 was 5.1x for the majority of our portfolio that reports this figure. This remains amongst the strongest coverage within the net lease industry. The rent coverage figure for our Garden properties specifically is 5.8x , which has been very consistent, remaining above a very lofty 5x for the past three years. As a reminder, the first tranche of lease maturities is due to send us extension notices by October of this year.
While we can't know the outcome with certainty, barring a material change in the operating performance of lease source, we would expect a very high renewal percentage for the spin-off portfolio in the coming years. To that end, our largest brands, Olive Garden, LongHorn, and Chili's, continue to be leaders within the net lease tenant universe. Most recently, Brinker reported Chili's same-store growth of 4% for the quarter ended March 2026, after a 31% increase a year ago. Olive Garden and LongHorn reported same-store sales growth of 3% and 7% respectively for the quarter. Remarkable results for the three brands that represent 47% of our portfolio rent combined. To bring that point home, I'll call to a new slide on page seven of our investor deck that shows the strong outperformance of our publicly traded tenants versus the generic all restaurant index.
The key takeaway is portfolio construction is extremely important. By being selective with our tenant partners, we are building what we believe is a fortress portfolio brick by brick. Our lead restaurant tenants appear to be taking market share and have not shown signs of slowing down. To that end, our portfolio has avoided some of the more problematic lease sectors experiencing long-term macro headwinds. This includes theaters, pharmacies, and experiential retail more generally. We benefit from our strong portfolio construction with low basis, fundable buildings operated by tenants and sectors that are e-commerce and recession-resistant. We have had no major tenant credit issues, leading to very low bad debt expense and very little vacancy in our portfolio. On this topic, we would like to provide a brief update on our Bahama Breeze properties.
As a point of clarification, we own 10 Bahama Breeze properties, which is 1.3% of our ABR. That said, Darden's planning to convert six of these locations to other brands they operate: Yard House, Olive Garden, LongHorn, Chili's, et cetera. They'd like to convert more, but they are limited by already having nearby existing locations and in some cases, co-tenancy restrictions. The remaining four properties are 50 basis points of ABR, and we already have actively negotiating letters of intent with new tenants to backfill these locations. Based on the figures we're negotiating, we expect to recover or possibly even exceed the prior rent paid by Darden. Although the timing and final economics will ultimately depend on the outcome of these negotiations. It takes a few months to negotiate a lease, and we should have further updates on timing at the Q2 earnings call.
Overall, very good shape. Remarkably, I'd like to point out that it's been less than three months since Darden announced the brand closure. For us to have potential solutions across the board for all 10 locations so quickly just highlights how our focused strategy of strong underlying real estate and irreplaceable rent levels will benefit us long- term. In any case, we'll continue to collect rent throughout the backfill process, as Darden is still obligated to make rent payments on these leases for all 10 locations for at least one and a half years, and in some cases, up to four. That provides us flexibility as we work through the preferred backfill tenant options. Shifting gears, we continue to diversify our portfolio.
37% of our rent now comes from tenants outside the casual dining subsector, including automotive service at 13%, medical retail at 11%, and QSR restaurants at 11%. We are actively exploring new retail categories and property types as we look to expand the top of our funnel for investments. As when we developed our automotive service and medical retail property strategies, prior to investing in a new sector, we evaluate the business resiliency and AI disruption risk, availability of credit-worthy tenants, real estate quality, and pricing attractiveness. That said, for us, the limiting factor on new sectors and deals is typically sellers' lofty pricing expectations. Finally, this is a very exciting point, I'd like to mention that Michael Friedland has joined our board.
Michael recently retired from JPMorgan and brings 30 years of Wall Street experience in real estate finance and corporate credit to FCPT. We've known Michael a long time, and we're really impressed and glad he's joined our board. Welcome, Michael. Over to you, Josh.
Thanks, Bill. I'll start with a review of Q1 activity and then touch on our investment pipeline. In Q1, we acquired 10 properties with a weighted average lease term of 10 years for $26 million at a blended 6.8% cash cap rate or a 7.3% GAAP cap rate. This represents an average basis of $2.6 million per property, extending our strategy of partnering with credit-worthy operators while focusing on fungible, low-cost basis assets to help mitigate downside risk. We are really happy with the asset selection this quarter. As Bill noted, Q1 is typically a lower volume period for us, and the ending volume for the period lined up well with our internal expectations. That said, Q2 is shaping up to be consistent with a typical seasonal volume ramp.
Our Q1 acquisitions were composed of 46% restaurant, 28% auto service, and 26% medical retail properties. On the credit side, all of our properties acquired in Q1 were leased to corporate operators. The only exception being our McAlister's Deli in Michigan, which is leased to Southern Rock, the largest McAlister's franchisee with 178 locations across 13 states. Our team continues to partner with leading operators in each of our chosen retail subsectors. Coupled with our low basis rent filtering, we have a proven track record of building a resilient and long-standing portfolio. In the meantime, our team continues to actively explore all avenues for investment, both large portfolios and small granular deals, in addition to assets in new subsectors, as evidenced in Q4 2025.
While we are expanding the top of our investment funnel, we will continue to maintain our discipline in acquiring low basis investments leased to best-in-class operators at pricing accretive to our cost of capital. Patrick, back to you.
Thanks, Josh. I'll start by talking about the state of our balance sheet and an update on our capital sourcing, including our recently closed term loan. We funded $50 million of new incremental of the new incremental $200 million term loan in April, and the balance will be used to fund acquisitions in Q2 and Q3. The term loan credit margin is 125 basis points over SOFR for an all-in rate of approximately 4.9%. We have fully hedged our current outstanding term loan balance of $640 million as of April 30th at a blended SOFR rate of 3.1% or approximately 4% all in with that rate steady through November 2027. Our supplemental disclosure includes a detailed pro forma hedge schedule.
We also continue to benefit from full capacity under our $350 million revolver. With respect to leverage at the end of Q1, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA was just 5x . It was our seventh consecutive quarter of leverage below 5.5x and at the bottom end of our stated leverage range of 5x- 6x . Noting that our term loan closed after quarter end, after fully funding and investing the proceeds, estimated run rate leverage will be 5.4x . Our fixed charge coverage ratio remains a very healthy 4.8x as of quarter end. Turning to debt maturities. Once factoring in the extension options for our existing term loan, we have no debt maturities until December, when just $50 million of private notes come due. We plan to address this in due course closer to the maturity date.
Our staggered maturity schedule will ensure we do not face a significant maturity wall at any point thereafter. Turning to some of our earnings highlights for Q1. AFFO per share was $0.45, representing 3.4% growth versus prior year. Cash rental income was $70 million, representing 10% growth versus prior year. Annualized cash-based rent for leases in place as of quarter end was $266 million, and our weighted average five-year annual cash rent escalator is 1.5%. Cash G&A expense was $4.9 million for the quarter, representing 7% of cash rental income, compared to 7.7% for the prior year. The 70 basis point improvement in operating leverage and flat cash G&A compared to the prior year illustrates our continued efforts at achieving efficient growth and the benefits of our rising scale.
Following our Q1 results, we are reaffirming our guidance range for 2026 cash G&A of $19.2 million-$19.7 million. We've also continued to make progress with 27 of the 42 leases originally expiring in 2026 extended. Recapture rate on these locations is 6% above prior year rent. We are currently negotiating to re-tenant two of those properties, and the remaining 13 now represent just 1% of ABR, down from 2.6% at the beginning of 2025. Our portfolio occupancy remains very strong at 99.6% today, which benefits from re-leasing some of our very limited number of vacant sites. We collected 99.7% of base rent in Q1. Last quarter did not see any material changes to our collectibility or credit reserves.
As an aside, during this call, we've referenced two of our new disclosure updates, which I'll highlight again now. First, going forward, we plan to disclose GAAP cap rates along with the cash cap rate figure we've always done. We have very low default rates historically, and our intention is to hold our properties long- term. Therefore, the data related to those expected long-term returns is another helpful metric for our investors.
Our presentation includes a new slide on page eight t hat has GAAP cap rates going back to 2023, which shows that historically they have averaged about 70 basis points higher than our initial cash cap rates. Second, we are updating the way we show the AFFO per share growth by calculating without the impact of two decimal rounding. Based on our share count, rounding can be impactful on this figure, particularly for quarterly comparisons. Our updated approach will allow us to quote a more accurate growth figure. We continue to aim for ways to improve transparency with the investor community and believe that these changes are aligned with value thus. With that, we'll turn over to questions for the Q&A session. And just as a reminder, the meeting ID is 865913566 if you would like to ask a question. Thank you.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Michael Goldsmith from the line of UBS. Michael, go ahead.
Thank you. It's Michael Goldsmith from UBS. Thanks for taking the question. First question is, I know you guys don't provide discrete guidance, but maybe this $200 million term loan is shadow guidance in that you've talked about fully drawing that down to the second and the third quarter. Is that, you know, as we think about just acquisition activity, you've got the $200 million there, you know, consensus at $275 million in acquisitions for the year, and that's stepping down to $250 million next year. Just trying to get a sense of, you know, your liquidity, the acquisition market, and now, you know, you kind of have clear line of sight into acquisitions of, let's say, $200 million through the third quarter.
You know, should you be able to exceed that and continue to acquire healthily into next year? Thanks.
Michael, you know our business well. I think the answer might be hidden in your question. Yeah, if we, you know, very are particular about how our press releases are drafted, and I think we gave more specific timing guidance than we have in the past. I would say it's always curious that analysts seem to have declining acquisitions for us, which is unusual in the space. I don't think there are other companies that that's the case. I'm not sure why. That's not what has been the historical record.
Got it. As a follow-up, appreciate the new slides in the presentation. I think pages seven and eight. Can you just kind of walk through what you're trying to show here? I think you're indicating that the Four Corners portfolio, how your tenants are outperforming maybe the general overall restaurant industry. Separately, right, like your cash cap rate or GAAP cap rates are exceeding your cash flow. Maybe you could just provide a little bit more detail about what the point that you're trying to make with both of these things.
Yeah, absolutely. Great question. We had an investor show us our stock price versus, like, some generic index. I think it might have been MSCI or Morgan Stanley, some generic restaurant index. You had to be a little cute with the start date to get it to line up. There was a pretty high correlation. They were sort of making the point, do you trade like a restaurant index? We think that that's a silly concept on its face. If we were going to trade like in a restaurant index, at a minimum, you should weight the index by our rent and look at the stock, well, performance of our tenants weighted by our rent.
If you do that, you get the yellow line, which is, you know, shows how strong Darden and Chili's has been. That we don't have, well, you know, because we weighted it basically down as far as we could with public companies. We don't have, you know, companies that have fallen into distress. Our tenant roster is really strong. The GAAP cap rate, we have a competitor, Agree, that we admire. It's a great company. They have historically used GAAP cap rates. We have gotten questions about where our cap rates are versus theirs. There seem to be some investor confusion that they're quoting two different things. Both numbers are perfectly legitimate ways of looking at it. Sometimes we felt our cash cap rates were being compared against their GAAP cap rates.
We just did the math and showed you the data so you can pick and choose the way you wanna do it. I'll handle the last new disclosure. You didn't ask about it, Michael, but I'll just handle it now, about rounding. Which is, you know, we just thought this is a more accurate way of doing it. We went back, you know, not surprisingly, some of the times the rounding would comparing rounded to rounded versus more closely actual to actual would, you know, have a higher growth rate some of the time, a lower growth rate some of the time. We just thought this was a better way of showing it. There seems to be a lot of focus on growth today, and we wanted to give you the most accurate number we can.
If you have more questions about that, it's a pretty technical calculation. I'd probably recommend you reach back out to Pat after the call on the rounding issue.
Thanks so much, guys. Good luck in the second quarter.
Appreciate it.
Thanks, Michael.
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Borden from BMO Capital Markets. Eric, go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just given your strong relationship with Yum! and Brinker, you know, are there any identical acquisition opportunities as Yum! expands on its Taco Bell platform and Brinker expands on its Chili's platform, just given the strength in same-store sales there, whether it's, you know, on the acquisition front or potentially, you know, a development opportunity? Thank you.
Thank you. We're, we're always working on those. You know, we, the one comment I'd make is Taco Bell tends to trade some very, very tight cap rates. We're always working on things like that. Being aligned with strong brands where we can play offense and not have to be licking the wounds of prior investment mistakes is a huge advantage. I would say that both of the brands you mentioned, they traded very, very, competitive cap rates on the secondary market.
Okay, that's helpful. Then just on the bad debt side of things, can you just talk about anything that's been realized year to date and, you know, how are you thinking about bad debt for the remainder of 2026? Thank you.
Yeah. The number is zero for the year to date. You know, we have over 1,300 leases, we're always kind of monitoring, you know, something in the portfolio. We have not had any bad debt this year. The portfolio continues to perform really strong. Say like, you know, you probably saw Brinker's results yesterday, recent prints by Darden as well. You know, the brands we've aligned with are weathering any sort of macro headwinds very well. There's gonna be some brands that don't. You know, we try to pick our horses very carefully so that we avoid that.
All right. Thank you for the time. Appreciate it.
Yeah, of course.
Your next question comes from the line of Wes Golladay with Baird. Wes, please go ahead.
Thank you. Hey, good morning, everyone. Can you go back to that comment on the expirations? I think you said 27 of 42 have been renewed. I believe you said 6%, so I would've thought maybe it'd been a little bit lower with the contractual rent extensions. Maybe how should we think about that going forward?
I wouldn't overemphasize it. I think we've had a positive quarter. You know, our typical rent growth is 1.5%. If you're modeling our company, I think that's a good place to go. There'll be quarters where it's better. There might be a quarter where it isn't as good. 1.5%, I think is a good place to start and finish.
Okay. Thanks for that.
And I would also just-
When we look at.
I would also just real quick, Wes, I would just like to, you know, emphasize that Justin and his team have done a just a terrific job on property management and asset management and re-leasing. That's a new, you know, capability for us, frankly. In the last couple years, Justin has really aggressively restructured his team and has done a terrific job. We are more on top of that as a company than we've ever been by far.
Okay. Thanks for the additional color there. When we look at the pipeline going forward, is there a bigger percentage of that in the new categories that you're evaluating, or are you looking to enter those new categories a little bit more methodically?
Yeah, we're really score-focused. We're not really putting emphasis on one category over the other. We're trying to find the assets that score the best and make sure that those rise to the top with appropriate pricing.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
We, you know, we are looking at some new, some new sectors as we talked about last quarter, and really leaning into building relationships, finding what tenants we wanna emphasize, et cetera. The, the aperture is bigger than it's ever been.
Okay. I appreciate the color.
Your next question comes from the line of John Kilichowski with Wells Fargo. John, please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First one for me, Bill, thanks for the color on Bahama Breeze. I guess just to expand on that, you know, you mentioned the positive mark on the other assets that weren't being converted. Is there gonna be downtime there? Will there be rent loss before the mark, or do you think there'll be no net credit loss there?
No, I don't think there'll be downtime. The Darden is responsible for a year and a half, up, at the minimum, up to four years for the handful that we're converting to other tenants. You know, to the extent that there's rent growth or capital provided, you know, all that's baked into our comments. We feel really good about being able to re-lease these to strong tenants. Darden's taking, you know, a lot of them too, so, a good diversification move. I think it shines a light on the Bahama Breezes that we sold a number of years ago for really, really high prices, that we did a good job managing our value at risk with any one particular tenant. Could be a good result.
I would just add to that. I mean, Bill said in his comments that we're talking about four stores and 50 basis points of ABR. It's a small amount.
Yeah.
Understood. Just quarter to date, if we kind of run the numbers here, it looks like the average blend is about 20 basis points higher than what you closed in 1Q. I know that's early based on what you've released. Is there any sort of upward creep in yields that you're seeing, I think, driving that? Or is that just, you know, small sample size there that's driving that move?
Small sample size.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Yep.
Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Germain from Citizens Bank. Mitch, please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Bill, you mentioned just a second ago, you know, obviously looking at a couple new industries. I think it was capital that you allocated to a rental company and, so a rental operator and a grocer. How do you know, what sort of education do you and your team take in reviewing the sector? You know, kind of what are the attributes that made those sort of assets or sectors interesting for you? Does that really, obviously it clearly changes the TAM in terms of how you're allocating capital. Is that the way we should be thinking about this now?
Yeah, I think that's a good way of thinking about it. You know, I guess we use what we call the triple filter, which is this something that we know enough to buy? I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Do we have our permission from our investors to buy it? Would we buy it with our own money? While those sound very high level, that is a very challenging gauntlet for an asset class to get through. You know, I personally wouldn't buy a pickleball facility with my own money, so that makes it pretty easy to, you know, not buy pickleball facilities. I wouldn't buy a Carvana with my own money, so that makes it pretty easy. Do we have permission from our investors? That's a harder one.
I think we tend to take it pretty gradually to make sure that we're bringing our investors along with us. Pretty clearly, you know, our investors don't need Four Corners to buy a Class A office in New York City. They have other ways to get that exposure. Do we know enough to know is manifest in writing white papers for our board, going to conferences, meeting and talking with tenants, walking the floors. Then I would say humbly that a lot of these sectors are things that I have experience with in the past, it just preceded Four Corners. When I was at [Trailion], when I was on Gramercy’s investment committee , you know, and other things I worked on, you know, we bought outdoor industrial storage. We bought grocery.
I have a familiarity with it. It's making sure we bring the team along with me.
Great. Last one from me. I asked this a couple times this quarter, but I'm just curious, are you seeing any real changes in the competitive landscape within the investment sales market? You know, I mean, obviously, for quite some time, there was a lot of competition that was sitting on the sidelines, and some of that appears to be back. Is that, you know, shifting, you know, kinda any way that you're approaching underwriting and bidding on properties?
You know, where we are buying these onesies and twosies, you know, we obviously look at portfolios, and have closed on several in our existence. I think we're really well competitively positioned. We can build a portfolio throughout a year that we're proud of doing onesies and twosies, but we have the scale to do bigger things as well. You know, you read a lot in the news about private credit and the private credit firms, you know, trading at discounts to NAV, questioning of their marks. You know, will that cause them to pull back? I don't think we have evidence of that yet. Certainly, there's been recently, you know, there's been a lot of corporate M&A activity. I think there's a lot of shadow of corporate M&A activity. There's a lot of things to work on now.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Bill Lenehan, CEO, for closing remarks. Bill, go ahead.
Great. Terrific, glad to land the plane on the 30-minute mark. Ultimately, our existing portfolio strength is compelling for us to focus on offense, where many of our peers are playing defense. Our $200 million term loan gives us a direct line of sight for funding between now and Q3. Attractive pricing we're seeing in the debt markets should give us even more access to low-cost funding later this year at scale. The acquisition market is stable. With a bit larger aperture for our property types, we expect another successful year of building our portfolio brick by brick. Our team will be at ICSC the week of May 18th and Nareit in New York the week of June 1st. As many of you know, we host a cocktail party in conjunction with ICSC.
We'd love to meet with you in person at either of these events. Please reach out Patrick or myself to coordinate schedules. Thank you all. Look forward to continuing to see many of you in person this year.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.