Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Stockholders of Getty Realty Corp. I am Christopher Constant, the company's Chief Executive Officer and President, and a member of the Board of Directors. We appreciate your participation in our annual meeting, which is being conducted virtually, allowing us an efficient way to engage with our stockholders and address your questions. Now, I would like to formally call this 2026 Annual Meeting of the Stockholders of Getty Realty Corp. to order. We will conduct the formal portion of our meeting first, and then I will provide some brief remarks regarding the state of the business. After I conclude my remarks, we will provide time for general questions. Only validated stockholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question.
Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending via the webcast or telephone is permitted to use any audio recording device. Now, I would like to introduce the other members of our board of directors joining me today, and who, together with myself, are nominees for re-election for the six board of directors positions to be filled at this annual meeting. They are Howard Safenowitz, our Chairman, Milton Cooper, Philip Coviello, Evelyn Infurna, and Mary Lou Malanoski. Also joining today are a number of the key members of Getty's management team, including Joshua Dicker, your Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, Brian Dickman, your Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer, RJ Ryan, your Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, and Eugene Shnayderman, your Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer, and Assistant Treasurer.
Also joining us today are representatives of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, the company's independent registered public accounting firm. Mr. Dicker, the company's Secretary, will file the proof of mailing of notice of this meeting with the minutes. He has informed me that there is a quorum present. Stockholders who voted by proxy need not cast ballots in the voting today unless they wish to change their vote. Mr. Dicker has been appointed as Inspector of Elections to conduct the voting at this meeting. His oath will be filed with the minutes. There are three proposals to be considered during this meeting, all of which were described in detail in the proxy statement furnished to stockholders. Proposal one pertains to the election of directors to the company's board. Proposal two is the advisory vote to approve the company's named executive officer compensation, commonly referred to as the Say-on-Pay vote.
Proposal three is to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31st, 2026. The polls are now open for voting. Stockholders who have not yet voted or wish to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. We will now pause for voting. The polls are now closed, and we will ask the inspector to now tabulate the votes. Mr. Dicker, do we have preliminary voting results?
Yes, we do.
The inspector has now completed his tally of the votes cast.
As Inspector of Elections, I report that a preliminary vote count has been completed, with the results remaining subject to final confirmation. Based on the preliminary vote count, the results are as follows. As to proposal one, each of the nominees for election to the board of directors has received the affirmative vote of a plurality of the total votes cast. Accordingly, all the nominees have been elected. As to proposal two, to approve on an advisory basis the company's named executive officer compensation, this proposal has received the affirmative vote of a majority of all votes cast on this proposal at the meeting. The board will give this stockholder vote due consideration.
As to proposal 3, to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31st, 2026, this proposal has received the affirmative vote of a majority of all the votes cast on this proposal at the meeting. Accordingly, proposal 3 has passed.
The inspector will make a final report of the votes, which will be included in the company's Form 8-K to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the formal portion of our annual meeting of the stockholders is now adjourned. I will now turn to my report on the state of the business, after which we will open the floor for a brief question and answer period. Good afternoon. Let me welcome our stockholders to the 2026 annual meeting for Getty Realty Corp. and again recognize the members of our board of directors, all of whom are in attendance today, and thank them for their leadership. In addition, I would like to thank Dana Benway and the entire PricewaterhouseCoopers team, who have also joined us today for this virtual meeting.
Getty's continued success stems directly from our disciplined strategy, which is supported by three key elements, our knowledge of the convenience and automotive retail sectors, our direct sale-leaseback approach to real estate acquisitions, and the unwavering commitment of our team to achieve our long-term objectives. In 2025, we pursued transaction opportunities in our core sectors and leveraged improved processes and systems to underwrite a record $7 billion of real estate, ultimately deploying $270 million at attractive yields that will contribute to our growth in the coming years. Our consistent investment approach, active portfolio management, and well-timed capital markets activities led to a strong year of portfolio expansion and diversification, an almost 12% increase in our annualized base rent, a 3.8% increase in our adjusted funds from operations per share, and a healthy increase in our recurring dividend to shareholders.
I am pleased to report to stockholders that our investment activity this past year extended the company's history of sourcing and acquiring high-quality convenience and automotive retail real estate to produce significant portfolio growth. For the year, the $270 million of investments included the acquisition of 73 properties for $255 million, with an initial weighted average lease term of 16 years and $14 million of incremental development funding. The initial cash yield on these investments was 7.9%. Notably, we further diversified our portfolio across property types, geographies, and tenants within our targeted retail sectors. The highlights of our efforts this past year were a $100 million sale-leaseback for 12 assets in the Houston, Texas market with a regional community store chain, Now & Forever.
Our first platform investment in the collision center sector, where we partnered with a top 3 operator in the sector and committed to fund up to $82.5 million for the construction of up to 11 new to industry collision centers. A record year of investments for Getty in the drive-through quick service restaurant sector, where we invested nearly $40 million in 28 drive-through quick service restaurants, which represent approximately 15% of our closed investment volume. Our initial investments in travel centers, where we partnered with certain Getty tenants who have expanded their store networks by building or acquiring large format community stores and travel centers. The successful execution of our differentiated relationship-based transaction sourcing strategy, which resulted in more than 90% of our investments being negotiated directly with tenants. Adding 13 new tenants to our portfolio during the year.
To support this growth, Getty remained active in the debt and equity capital markets in 2025, raising nearly $300 million of long-term debt and permanent equity capital to lock in accretive spreads to our initial investment yields. The highlights of these activities included increasing the size of our revolving credit facility to $450 million and extending the maturity to 2029, issuing $250 million of senior unsecured notes with a 10-year term at a fixed rate of 5.76%, and most recently, in February of 2026, completing a forward equity offering where we raised $130 million at an attractive net cost to the company. The result of executing on our investment strategy is that Getty has the most diversified portfolio in terms of tenants, sectors, and geographies in the company's history.
Since the onset of our current strategy in 2019, we have added 49 new tenants to our portfolio and diversified our rental streams by sector, with now more than 30% of our ABR coming from non-convenience and gas properties. Currently, our portfolio of nearly 1,200 properties spans 45 states across the U.S., is 99.7% occupied, has an initial weighted average lease term of more than 10 years, and has no material lease expirations until 2029. Looking ahead, while we cannot control the broader factors surrounding current geopolitical events and their ultimate impact on the health of the U.S. economy and the American consumer, I can assure you that the Getty team is constantly providing existing and prospective tenants with thoughtful real estate underwriting and creatively structured sale-leaseback and development funding capital.
We enter 2026 with significant momentum, and our confidence in our ability to execute on our business strategy continues to be driven by three factors. The first is the conviction that we have in the convenience and automotive retail sectors that we invest in. As focused investors, we lean on our expertise in sourcing, underwriting, and closing investments across these sectors. These are large and fragmented sectors which are benefiting from consumer trends including convenience, speed, and service. As these industries continue to consolidate and become more institutional, we believe our direct sale-leaseback approach uniquely positions Getty to grow with a combination of established and emerging retailers. Second, our strong start to the year. We are seeing the benefits of investments we've made in our platform to accelerate growth, including a larger investment team, new technologies, and improved processes.
Our underwriting year to date is ahead of last year's pace, and we have a significant pipeline of opportunities that are either under contract or in various stages of underwriting or negotiation. Finally, we have a robust capital position. Our recent capital markets activities have provided us with significant liquidity and attractive cost of capital to fund our 2026 business plans. We currently have more than $170 million of unsold forward equity, and our $450 million revolver is completely undrawn. Given this solid foundation, we anticipate continued acceleration in our investment momentum, positioning us to deliver another successful year of earnings and portfolio growth. I would be remiss if I did not mention the dedicated team I work with at Getty. As a lean organization, each employee is critical to the overall success of the company.
I genuinely appreciate their collaborative, thoughtful, and efficient approach to helping Getty achieve its corporate goals. I'd like to conclude by again thanking our board and stockholders for their ongoing support. With that, I will open the floor for questions which can be entered through the virtual Broadridge site. I would now be happy to entertain any appropriate questions you may have concerning the company or its business. We will take stockholders' questions that are being entered on the web portal. Please note that we will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows, but only questions that are germane to the meeting will be addressed. Before we begin the question and answer period, I would like to ask Mr. Dicker to read a safe harbor statement into the record.
Thank you, Chris. I have been monitoring the web portal throughout the meeting and can confirm now that there are no questions pending from our stockholders. Accordingly, it is unnecessary to read the safe harbor statement into the record. I will turn the meeting back over to Christopher Constant, our Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.
With that, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our annual meeting. I want to thank you for attending and for your interest in the affairs of your company.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for your attendance. You may now disconnect.