CareTrust REIT - Earnings Call - Q2 2021

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CareTrust REIT Second Quarter twenty twenty one Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to Lauren Beale, SVP and Controller.

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you and welcome to CareTrust REIT's second quarter twenty twenty one earnings call. Participants should be aware that this call is being recorded and listeners are advised that any forward looking statements made on today's call are based on management's current expectations, assumptions beliefs about CareTrust's business and the environment in which it operates. These statements may include projections regarding future financial performance, dividends, acquisitions, investments, returns, financings and other matters and may or may not reference other matters affecting the company's business or the businesses of its tenants including factors that are beyond their control such as natural disasters, pandemics such as COVID-nineteen and governmental actions. The company's statements today and its business generally are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied herein. Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements and are encouraged to review CareTrust's SEC filings for a more complete discussion of factors that could impact results as well as any financial or other statistical information required by SEC Regulation G.

Except as required by law, CareTrust REIT and its affiliates do not undertake to publicly update or revise any forward looking statements or changes arise as a result of new information, future events, changing circumstances or for any other reason. During the call the company will reference non GAAP metrics such as EBITDA, FFO and FAD or FAD and normalized EBITDA, FFO and FAD. When viewed together with GAAP results the company believes these measures can provide a more complete understanding of its business but cautions that they should not be relied upon to the exclusion of GAAP reports. Yesterday CareTrust filed its Form 10 Q, an accompanying press release and its quarterly financial supplement each of which can be accessed on the Investor Relations of CareTrust website at www.caretrustreit.com. A replay of this call will also be available on the website for a limited period.

On the call this morning are Bill Wagner, Chief Financial Officer Dave Sedgwick, President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Lamb, Chief Investment Officer and Eric Gillis, Vice President of Portfolio Management and Investments. I'll now turn the call over to Greg Stapley, CareTrust REIT's Chairman and CEO. Greg?

Speaker 2

Thanks Lauren and good morning everyone. In Q2 we continued to methodically execute on our long term business plan in spite of the near term challenges posed by the pandemic. We acquired some great facilities, refinanced some higher cost debt, raised a little equity, saw our sniff census start to rebound, collected all of our contract rent, and continued to refill our pipeline. But before we go into all of that, we note that as the current wave of Delta variant infections raises the possibility of more limitations on the activities of daily living, skilled nursing and seniors housing industries continue to battle back from the downdraft in census that bottomed in the first quarter of this year. Not surprisingly, skilled nursing and seniors housing facilities which were a favorite target of the finger pointers in the early days of the pandemic have today become some of the safest and healthiest places for vulnerable seniors and post acute patients to be.

We're proud to be associated with the people who provide these services and we continue to base our business strategy on a commitment to move as many facilities as we can into the strongest operating hands possible. While our providers have risen to the challenge of protecting residents, patients, and staff from this highly infectious disease, they're still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic, most notably depressed census, increased labor costs, and a shortage of qualified workers. Our robust disclosure around lease coverage, we began last fall, has clearly demonstrated the importance of provider relief funds for the skilled nursing industry. Our skilled nursing providers have fared well as the government has provided significant funding and other measures designed to fill the gaps created by decreased occupancy revenue and increased operating costs. We're hopeful that the industry will soon receive some or all of the remaining provider relief funds which many operators still need.

Our quarterly lease coverage disclosures have also highlighted the looming dangers of failing provide direct financial support to seniors housing. Census for AL providers is unlikely to recover as quickly as it will for skilled nursing. These providers, especially those serving mid market and lower income clientele provide a highly valuable and essential service to society and they're good reasons for payors to want to keep those residents healthy and in place for as long as possible. We join with many voices who are calling on government to acknowledge the critical role that assisted living providers play in the healthcare continuum with direct relief funding. That said, we're very pleased with where we are today.

This quarter we posted double digit normalized FFO per share growth of 10.2% over the same quarter last year and increased our dividend by 6% at the same time. We collected 100% of contract rents in Q2 and 96.2% thus far for July. We believe that we can yet collect 100% of rents due this year. We grew the portfolio with 42,300,000 in new investments since the last quarter bringing our total capital deployment for the year to almost 185,000,000 so far. We reduced our borrowing cost with the $400,000,000 seven year bond issue we completed in June of the three seveneight coupon to refinance our previous five onefour percent bonds.

This fixed and reduced that chunk of our long term interest expense and pushed those maturities out to 2028. We held steady on leverage with net debt to EBITDA of 3.7 times and debt to EV of 22.1 at quarter end. We used our ATM to sell 288,000 shares in the quarter at an average of over $24 per share. And with all of that, we increased our FFO and FAD guidance yesterday reflecting our constructive view of our own future and the future of the post acute care and seniors housing industries notwithstanding the near term headwinds we are all facing. Other than that, it was a pretty boring quarter.

And so to wrap up, despite the short term challenges with great operator relationships, plenty of liquidity and a great team here, CareTrust remains well positioned to continue pursuing our mission of pairing great operators with meaningful opportunities to transform individual facilities and by extension the industry as a whole for the better. With that, I'll turn it over to Dave to discuss the industry and our portfolio. Then Mark will jump in with recent acquisitions in the pipeline, and Bill will finish off with the financials. Then we'll open up for Q and A. Dave?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everybody. In q two, our skilled nursing operators reported continued occupancy recovery. Looking at the facility level data through May, 18% of our SNFs and campuses are at or above 100% of their pre COVID occupancy and are moving in the right direction. For the SNF portfolio overall, occupancy has grown from January's floor of about 67% to around 70 in June for a rate of recovery of about 60 bps per month. If that rate held constant, we would be looking at approximately next April to May to return to our pre pandemic occupancy levels of 77.7%.

But we expect it to fluctuate a bit due to a few factors, like the delta wave concerns, which we hope will be short lived, seasonality, q three usually being the softest quarter for skilled nursing census, for example, and a reported inability in some markets to admit patients due to staff shortages, which we think may be beginning to resolve. On the skilled mix front, at quarter end, our operators were still roughly a 150 bps above the pre pandemic skilled mix norm, which continues to help offset some of the revenue loss while occupancy recovers. Seniors housing occupancy is a somewhat different story. Before COVID, average occupancy in our portfolio was 84 and a half percent. We appeared to hit a low point in March of 73 and a half percent, and that level has held steady through June.

While we expect seniors housing occupancy to recover and actually exceed pre pandemic numbers at some point, as Greg mentioned, it will not happen nearly as quickly for assisted living as it is happening for skilled. As a reminder, seniors housing only accounts for about 17% of our portfolio. Next, let me talk about our lease coverage. In yesterday's supplemental, we continued our enhanced COVID era disclosure wherein we try to be as transparent and helpful as possible by reporting lease coverage on an EBITDAR and EBITDARM basis, both excluding CARES Act funding and including and amortizing the CARES Act funds received to date. Since last quarter's supplemental, HHS updated the utilization and reporting guidelines for the CARES Act.

So this supplemental amortization methodology follows the updated guidance and provides a pretty reassuring picture for most, if not all, of our skilled nursing tenants. Looking at the COVID era numbers, overall portfolio EBITDAR coverage, excluding CARES Act funds, was essentially flat from the immediately preceding quarter, ticking down slightly from 2.12 times for the nine months ending on 12/31/2020 to two point o seven times for the twelve months ending 03/3121. However, both of these numbers are considerably higher than the same pre pandemic number, which was 1.92 times for the twelve months ending on 03/3120. The relative strength comes from several of our skilled nursing operators, including Ensign, which has done an amazing job throughout. Predictably, if you've been watching our coverage disclosures, our seniors housing operators are facing strong headwinds right now.

Our current assisted living operators were improving operations and coverage leading up to the pandemic, and they all largely held their own through 2020. But January's sharp decrease in occupancy, coupled with elevated labor costs have made a challenging operating environment that much harder. I'd like to point out on the top 10 coverage slide that Noble's coverage is not apples to apples with last quarter's supplemental. We've removed two facilities from their coverage calculation as we are pursuing a sale of one, and the other has been undergoing a major remodel and has not been open or operated. Noble did not pay July rent and has requested a short term deferral for July, August, and part of September backed by a plan to have all deferred rent paid before the end of the year.

As we sit here today, we have not agreed to the deferral request but are having positive discussions with them about their plan and path forward. All of our assisted living tenants have been very communicative and open with us about their situations and their efforts to weather the storm. For Noble, this has made it much easier for us to work with them as they chart a positive path forward, and we have reason to believe that they will continue to improve operationally barring any major fallout from the current delta wave. Shifting from our portfolio to the broader picture, we have a positive update regarding the remaining provider relief funds. First, we enjoyed a defensive win when congress agreed not to tap into the unobligated provider relief funds to help pay for its current infrastructure bill.

Second, it had previously been reported that roughly 24,000,000,000 remained in the provider relief fund. On July 19, the government accountability office reported a much higher amount of unobligated funds of 43,700,000,000.0. In addition, there remains another 8,000,000,000 in relief funds earmarked for rural providers, bringing the total unallocated and undistributed funds to about 52,000,000,000. As far as timing goes, we don't know. But we do understand that a program is at the White House for final approval, would assist providers based on lost income and increased expenses during the 2020 and the first quarter of twenty twenty one.

Given DC's current attention to the infrastructure bill, our understanding is that movement toward final approval and execution will wait until the current infrastructure bill is done. Another positive development is that CMS has agreed to not change the PDPM formula until at least October 2022. This is certainly welcome news for a sector that is still very much battling the effects of the pandemic. Finally, the delta variant warrants a mention. We'll leave the predictions to the scientists and statisticians, but we can say both based on report this week from the American Health Care Association and anecdotal reports from our tenants that infection rates among nursing facility residents and staff are not climbing at anywhere near the rate being experienced in the general population, and so far nursing homes remain some of the safest places to be in America.

With high vaccination rates, accurate rapid testing on-site, which we did not have this time last year, and full infection protocols in place, we're hopeful that the delta wave will be nothing like the original outbreak in 2020. With that, I'll pass the call over to Mark to talk about investments. Mark?

Speaker 4

Thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. In Q2 and since, we continue to be aggressive on the acquisition front with two investments that we believe will be accretive to not only us, but our operators as well. First, at the April, we acquired 123 bed SNF for $9,800,000 in an off market transaction brought to us by our tenant Bay Shire Senior Communities. The facility was a value add opportunity in a secondary market here in Southern California And the prior operator was a single asset mom and pop provider. It was a great match for Bayshire whose principals have extensive relationships and operating experience serving higher acuity patients from that market, who have consistently been exported to other markets due to a lack of sophisticated local care.

Bayshire is now bringing that level of operational sophistication and quality care to the facility and the community response has been gratifying. Second, earlier this week we announced the acquisition of two state of the art skilled nursing facilities located in Austin, Texas which we leased to the operating affiliates of the Ensign Group. The facilities add to Ensign's existing footprint in Austin and strengthens their position in Texas which they cited on their call last week as one of their highest performing states. For CareTrust, the transaction allowed us to grow with the bluest of blue chips in Ensign in a state we like and in arguably the hottest real estate and growth market in the country. The two assets which were both constructed in 2017 were purchased from the original developer in an off market transaction for approximately $32,500,000 inclusive of transaction costs.

Ensign opted to make an upfront rent reduction payment of 5,000,000 at closing and the annual cash rent under the existing master lease to which the facilities were added was increased by approximately 2,200,000.0. This produced a first year cash on cash yield to CareTrust of approximately 8% which is lower than our typical going in yield on SNF assets but obviously reflects the credit and operating strength of a premier operator in Ensign. Both the California and Texas transactions were funded using CareTrust's $600,000,000 unsecured revolving credit facility. Through today, we have invested 184,100,000.0 so far this year and we will continue to press forward on the acquisition front to hopefully finish off the year with the kind of external growth results you are accustomed to seeing from us prior to the pandemic. As for the market, deal flow has been somewhat consistent over the past few weeks and months with a number of one off skilled nursing facilities hitting the market with very little volume for small to mid sized portfolios.

On the seniors housing front, we're seeing the entire range from half empty turnarounds to performing Class A product. I can say as a whole, in both the skilled nursing and seniors housing spaces pricing at this point in time is dislocated from property level performance. But we continue to underwrite carefully and look for opportunities that fit us and our operating partners. Lastly, PIPE has been reloaded back to our historical range of 100,000,000 to $125,000,000 The PIPE is made up of singles and doubles and we continue to pursue pieces of larger portfolios that look interesting to us. The PIPE opportunities will allow us to do tack ons with some of our existing operators and also begin new relationships with operators that we have courted over the past twelve to eighteen months.

Finally, the composition of the PIPE is largely SNFs with a few potential mezzanine loan relationship opportunities that we think could be a good long term fit for our SNF investment thesis. Please remember that when we quote our pipe we only quote deals that we are actively pursuing under current underwriting standards and then only if we have a reasonable level of confidence that we can lock them up and close them in the relatively near term. And now I'll turn it to Bill to discuss the financials.

Speaker 5

Thanks Mark. For the quarter, normalized FFO grew by 11.4% over the prior year quarter to $35,800,000 and normalized FAD grew by 13.5% to $38,100,000 On a per share basis, normalized FFO grew by 10.2 over the prior year quarter to $0.37 per share, and normalized FAD grew by 12.3% to $0.40 per share. During the second quarter, we issued $400,000,000 in new senior notes due in 2028 at an interest rate of three point eights. The proceeds of the issuance were used to pay off the 5 and a quarter $300,000,000 senior notes due in 2025 and the related call premium. These and expenses of the issuance and the remaining funds were used to pay down the revolver to about 50,000,000.

More on this transaction and the quarterly impact from it can be seen in our supplemental on page six. Moving on to guidance. We are raising our previously released guidance by 2¢ on both ends of the range. Normalized FFO per share to 1.48 to $1.5 and normalized FAD per share to $1.57 to $1.59 This guidance includes all investments and dispositions made to date, a share count of 96,900,000.0 shares, and also relies on the following assumptions. One, no additional investments, dispositions or rent cuts or reserves, nor any further debt or equity issuances this year.

Two, inflation based rent escalations, which account for almost all of our escalators at an average of 2%. Our total rental revenues for the year, again including only acquisitions made to date, are projected at approximately $186,000,000 which includes less than $60,000 of straight line rent. Three, interest income of approximately 2,000,004, interest expense of approximately 24,000,000. In our calculations, we have assumed a LIBOR rate of 15 bps and a grid based margin rate of 125 bps on the revolver and 150 bps on the unsecured term loan. Interest expense also includes roughly 2,000,000 of amortization of deferred financing fees.

Not included in interest expense is a $10,800,000 charge that we will take in Q3 related to the refinancing. The 10,800,000.0 is made up

Speaker 6

of

Speaker 5

7,900,000.0 of redemption fees, and a 2,900,000.0 write off of deferred financing fees. And five, we are projecting g and a of approximately 19,600,000.0 to 21,500,000.0. This ranges up approximately 600,000 over the previously released guidance due to certain hurdles being met relating to our short term incentive compensation program. Our G and A projection also includes roughly 7,000,000 of amortization of stock comp. Our liquidity remains extremely strong with approximately 25,000,000 in cash, 500,000,000 available under our revolver, having drawn 50,000,000 on it subsequent to quarter end, and we produce roughly 12,000,000 in cash after we pay the dividend every quarter.

We also raised almost 7,000,000 of equity off our ATM at an average price of 24.05 during the quarter. Leverage also continues to be strong at a net debt to normalized EBITDA ratio of 3.7 times today. Our net debt to enterprise value was 22.1% as of quarter end, and we achieved a fixed charge covered ratio of 8.1 times. Lastly, cash collections for the quarter came in at 100% of contractual rent, and July came in at 96.2 percent. I would expect August to be much like July based on the color given on the call today.

And with that, I will turn it back to Greg.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Bill. And thank you, everyone. We hope this discussion has been helpful for you. We'll turn it now back to Christy to start the Q and A. Christy?

Speaker 1

Certainly.

Speaker 0

And your first question is from Juan Sanabria of BMO Capital Markets.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. Just hoping you could talk a little bit about the seniors housing performance on the assisted living side with basically flattish occupancy. What do you think is is holding that back? We've seen a bunch of your peers who are both AL and IL exposed have have a bit of a better bounce off the bottom. So just curious if it's maybe smaller facilities or labor constraints that you kind of touched on, but any color on the lack of growth in occupancy would be helpful.

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Hey, Salon. This is Dave. What we've heard from our operators is that some local restrictions on visitation have been, a challenge. Staffing has also been, challenging for some of them in order to to grow the occupancy. We do have you know, the the occupancy numbers that we gave are really through June, but we do have some more real time info that's that's more positive.

We're seeing in some parts of our portfolio some real momentum in occupancy. And as we sit here today from July even to August, that's going to if if it holds, will show a pretty good improvement over what we've reported through June. In particular state, for example, we have some some buildings in Michigan that were at 73% occupancy in June that are today at 79% and projecting to be at 82% by the end of this month. So we did have some, a bit of a stalemate there, but it looks like we're starting to pick up some some good momentum.

Speaker 6

And are there restrictions on visitations for some of your operators, and are those self imposed or mandated by local, authorities?

Speaker 3

By and large, the restrictions have been lifted as as the most restrictive restrictions were in place last year. But that was so so that has as we sit here today, has has been mostly lifted. And and some operators every operator approaches their policies a little bit differently. Some are more cautious than others. But at this point, I think all of the facilities are open for business and open for admissions with one exception where we have, one building in the portfolio that we're aware of that is dealing with a bit of a small outbreak of the Delta variant.

Speaker 6

Okay. And maybe a question on the balance sheet with regards to how willing you are to get more aggressive and and kinda go above and into your historical targeted range, sitting at three seven today, very cautious and conservative. But are at the point where you're willing to become more offensive? Or given the Delta variant, you'd prefer to kind of stick where you are and keep it low and just have that insurance policy?

Speaker 2

You know, Juan, this is Greg. We've always been willing to be more aggressive if the situation or opportunities rather merited it. That's why we keep it low. It's not really a cushion, although it works that way. Our thesis for keeping it low is that we want to be able to do the big deal when it comes along.

Now is probably not the time for that. As Mark mentioned in his prepared remarks, pricing for all assets is rather severely dislocated from normal underwriting standards and the realities on the ground. And so we are still sitting on that dry powder. But we will not hesitate to use it when the time comes if the time comes.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Your next question is from Jason Anin of RBC Capital Markets.

Speaker 7

Hey, guys. I'm just wondering how we should be thinking about investments today. I think last quarter you guys mentioned that there could be some larger portfolios that you guys were looking at. And then it sounds like today it's mostly singles and doubles. I guess have those larger portfolios just not come to the market maybe to the level that you had expected?

Or what are you guys seeing on the acquisition front?

Speaker 2

This is Greg. I'll take that and then Mark can fill in if I miss anything. Look, there are a couple of larger portfolios out there. We think we see everything that comes through the marketing. As this quarter demonstrated, we actually see stuff that doesn't come through the market.

So we've got a pretty comprehensive view of what's going on. And we would just tell you the portfolios always carry a premium that's seldom justified but just the norm. And in the current environment it's really tough to get to the pricing that some are willing to pay for the larger portfolios. So we've always said that we are opportunistic buyers and that if the opportunities weren't there, we were always comfortable taking our money and heading for the sidelines. We're not on the sidelines now as you've seen.

We're having a pretty good year so far. But it has required us to really get in and beat the bushes and do a lot of this on smaller deals. The portfolio that we acquired in March was four buildings but 125,000,000 so that wasn't small. But right now with our pipeline at 100 to 100 and a quarter it really is singles and doubles and the big portfolios are kind of priced out of range especially considering the financial distress that still lingers across the industry. Mark, anything to add?

Speaker 4

Yeah, would just say that if, you know, when you're looking at larger portfolios, you're oftentimes looking to partner with operators who their situations can change from time to time. And so depending on what happens with Delta, they may or may not be in a situation to take on more buildings into their portfolio. So it's a little bit of a fluid situation in terms of matching assets with operators, assuming that we can get there on pricing.

Speaker 7

Got it. Okay. And then in terms of the provider relief fund, so there's $52,000,000,000 left. I guess what would be the expectation? Or what would prevent them from distributing that full amount as opposed to like holding some of that back?

I guess, what's your guys' expectation there? And then what's the potential in your eyes of seniors housing getting a chunk of that?

Speaker 3

Yeah. This is Dave. Good question. The expectation is that the that the whole 52,000,000,000 would be in play eventually. There there was some there is some talk about holding some back to correct mistakes from previous phases, either miscalculations or money going to the wrong operator because of changes of ownership, that sort of thing.

But but but that essentially still distributes all of the money. We have not heard any reporting or or rationale for for them to withhold any dollars from providers. We also it's our understanding that this phase four that is on deck would include seniors housing operators. But at this point, we can't we can't promise that. And that's just what we've been told by those who are closer to it than we are.

Speaker 7

Got it. Okay. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 8

You bet. Welcome.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Your next question is from Jordan Sadler of KeyBanc Capital.

Speaker 9

Hey, this is Arthur Porto on for Jordan. Just one question for me. We noticed that you closed your first acquisition alongside Ensign for the first time in a while, maybe even since your spin off with the company. Is this the beginning of a more active relationship with Ensign or was this more of a one off transaction? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yeah Arthur this is Greg. Look we never didn't really didn't have an active relationship Ensign. What we had was a significant need following the spin off to diversify the portfolio. It took us a long, long time to educate the investor community as to the benefits of our enzyme concentration. And it wasn't until we were well under 50% concentrated with them that people started to go oh, you know, we kind of get that now as their coverage climbed.

So we've always wanted to do things with Ensign. We think the world of those guys as operators. In fact we don't think there's anybody better out there. And they're just a great, great partner to have in the portfolio. They have very, very stringent underwriting and expansion standards.

They always have. It's part of their secret sauce. We respect that. And we've tried things over the years but it's only recently that we've actually found assets in their markets that are a good match for them and been able to do this deal. It was a great deal for them.

It was a great deal for us. We love these assets. These are the last assets that Mark and I toured before the pandemic in late February of twenty twenty. And we just kind of had to keep that deal warm through the turmoil of the last year in order to get it done. We're very grateful we did it.

And we hope that we'll be able to do more deals like that and more deals with Ensign in the future.

Speaker 10

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Your next question is from Steven Valiquette of Barclays.

Speaker 10

Thanks. Hello everyone. Thanks for taking the question. You know, first, if we think about your rent diversification by state, you know, it's on Page 12 in the supplement, this was touched on a little bit, but one of your skilled nursing REIT peers did note that some of the rising labor pressure and wages can be difficult to manage in states with limited or no COVID-nineteen reimbursement relief. So I guess I'm curious if you can speak at a high level on CTRE's exposure to major states with limited or no COVID relief for operators or lack of exposure, if that's the circumstance which obviously be positive that end?

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Thanks for the question. Right now, the performance, either positive or distress, we're really not seeing a connection to that issue. We've been pleased generally speaking, with how the states have responded with FMAP increases or across the board Medicaid rate increases in most of the states that we're in. We we feel that the state response coupled with the federal response has been has been good. But as we've hinted at or talked at directly today, more is definitely needed.

So we're we're anxious to see if a phase four funding approved and distributed in the months to come.

Speaker 10

Okay. Great. One quick follow-up here. So you guys had a great slide deck back at re week back in June that I feel like might have been somewhat overlooked in the investment community. So I just have one question around one of the slides in there.

Not to have to make you tap your memory back. So one of the slides, it was page 19, but, basically, it showed your monthly skilled mix occupancy and how that's benefited from the elimination of the three day hospital stay rule. You know, showed that it peaked at around 26% in December. It's come back down a little bit in the first four or five months of '21, which to me, I think was a little bit surprising. But the so the questions are, what's your latest intelligence on the duration of the suspension of the three day hospital stay requirement?

And then two, if you did have to predict how your skilled mix occupancy will progress for the rest of 2021, how would you characterize it? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Great. Thank you. So we were not surprised that the the skill mix has dropped since there it really correlates closely with the drop in COVID in the facilities. It's almost an exact mirror of that peaking in December vaccine coming in place.

Speaker 2

And

Speaker 3

the new cases of COVID has just dropped precipitously since since December. And the skilled mix has so so the operators lose those skilled patients, but they're able to they've been able to maintain a little bit higher average than prepandemic levels for skilled mix because of the three day qualifying stay waiver as you stated. Our understanding is that that is, as as of today, which this can change, of course, is still in place through the end of this year. And talking to some of our operators, and and Ensign talked about this, I think, on their earnings call as well, that many of them are believing that they're gonna be able to maintain a little bit of an elevated level of skilled mix over pre pandemic levels throughout this year. Impossible to predict, of course, but that's the latest intel that we have.

Speaker 10

Okay. All right. Great. That's great color. Thanks.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Your next question is from Daniel Bernstein of Capital One.

Speaker 8

Hi. I guess my question on the Ensign relationship was actually asked. But in that same kind of context, Ensign on their earnings call was saying that some of the properties or I guess some of the new properties that they're leasing with you were operators that exited the business. And so maybe if you could talk about this in terms of your pipeline. Are you seeing a lot more operators exiting the business than before or maybe pre COVID?

And are any potential tax implications coming out of the federal government may be an impetus for that? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Hey Dan, it's Greg. You know the operator that Ensign replaced in those two Texas buildings is not exiting the business. They were just exiting those particular facilities. But they're still around in other places. It have been for a long time.

In terms of what's going on out there with the stuff that's on the market, We do hear from time to time that people are motivated by fear of capital gains rate tax increases coming possibly in the future. But that really is not the biggest motivating factor for anyone to sell. Usually there's other stuff going on and we're addressing that as best we can in the deals that we chase. But no, we are not it's logical, but we're not seeing tax motivations for these sales. Okay.

Speaker 8

That was the only question I had. I appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3

You bet.

Speaker 0

And we have no further questions. I'll turn the call back over to management for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Hey Christy, we just saw one more pop up in your queue.

Speaker 0

Yes, we have Jonathan Hughes of Raymond James.

Speaker 11

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for squeezing me in. Appreciate it. Bill,

Speaker 6

can you go back

Speaker 11

to guidance? I don't know if I heard you correctly or mistakenly, but did you say you expect rent collections going forward to look a lot like July, but the guidance includes no rent shortfall?

Speaker 5

Yes. I did say that. I I expect August collections to be a lot like July. But I but as we said in the, prepared remarks, we expect to be made whole on a 100% of contractual cash rent by the end of the year.

Speaker 11

Okay. So the cadence would would then be for, like, third quarter, maybe down a little, and that reverts itself in the fourth quarter?

Speaker 5

Yes. But we're keeping we're currently keeping the tenant that we mentioned, on an accrual basis because we feel the collections are probable.

Speaker 11

Okay. That helps. And then I don't think I heard anybody talk about the, covenant. You know, coverage dropped a little there. Can you just maybe talk about what happened there?

Any concerns on on that portfolio?

Speaker 3

Sure, Jonathan. It's Dave. Covenant Care, it was among the hardest hit in our portfolio. From a census perspective, they they dropped from around 90 occupancy pre pandemic down to 70%. And and labor costs were also hit hard.

Their their build their their six buildings with us are a small piece of their overall portfolio, but they're in rural markets that have just had a little bit of a harder time with COVID than the rest of their portfolio, which is which is more urban based and is recovering a lot better. So they're recovering really well before the pandemic. We think they've bottomed and are and are on their way back, and and the the parent company credit is it gives us no cause for any concern in the short run.

Speaker 11

Okay. And that's all skilled nursing. Right? It's not seniors housing?

Speaker 3

That's right. Okay.

Speaker 11

And then just one more for me for maybe Mark or Greg. But given this dislocation and pricing versus fundamentals for acquisitions, I think, how you framed it. Would a potential sale of some properties could this environment give you an opportunity to perhaps move on and try to deploy capital elsewhere? That may be a better option working with some of these operations until things recover over the next few years. I guess I'm just getting at is there any potential for capital recycling in the next six or twelve months?

Speaker 2

Well Jonathan, it's Greg. We did mention in our prepared remarks one facility that we we've now slated for sale. That'll be a very, very small deal, immaterial in fact. But you know we don't really look at the portfolio that way. Our portfolio is relatively young and has not had a lot of time to appreciate significantly in value.

We don't see a lot of big upside the value of our facilities that might be captured with a sale like that. We're not against it. We just don't see it right now.

Speaker 11

Okay. Yeah. Did see the one Noble. I would guess it was more asking on a on a larger scale, but, you just addressed that. So, okay.

That's all I had. I, appreciate the time. Enjoy the weekend.

Speaker 2

You too. You too.

Speaker 0

We have no further questions.

Speaker 2

Very good. Well thank you everyone for being on. We hope you have a nice weekend. As always you know where to reach us if you have any additional questions. Take care.

Speaker 0

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.