Pete Mavoides, president and CEO of Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: EPRT), participated in a video interview during Nareit’s REITworld: 2023 Annual Conference held Nov. 14-16 in Los Angeles.
Mavoides said EPRT’s most-asked question from investors recently has been regarding how the REIT generates growth in the current economic environment.
“We are differentiated in the net lease space in that we are essentially a sale lease-back capital provider to middle market tenants,” Mavoides said. “It’s really a unique period of time where the overall capital markets are challenged—but…that’s creating opportunity for us to deploy capital.”
Turning to how EPRT is positioned to cope with ongoing market financing challenges, Mavoides noted that the REIT has been tackling some broader macro issues for the past 12 to 18 months.
“Our strategy during that time was really to stay in a liquid capital position, stay low-levered and have the ability to continue to invest [and] continue to drive growth,” he said. “We have plenty of capital to put to work [and] we have an opportunity set that is generating great risk-adjusted returns.”
Mavoides added that EPRT is looking forward to opening a satellite office in New Jersey in 2024 that will help the company attract and retain talent out of New York City.