Sonida Senior Living Announces Earnings
We are truly glad to see that Sonida Senior Living (formerly Capital Senior Living) is seeing improvements in census, contract labor use, rates and revenues. We are sure outgoing CEO Kim Lody wanted to leave with some upbeat news. Census (84% at quarter end) is now just 50 basis points below the pre-pandemic level. But as we have repeatedly said, pre-pandemic was not so good for the industry. We really have to look at three to four years before the pandemic as a goal. Several quarters ago we found a “typo” in the quarterly earnings release, which made the financial performance look better. After our reporting, they then issued a corrected release. In this second quarter 2022 earnings... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Do We Really Have To Worry About A Recession?
We just can’t seem to get a break. Just as we are coming out of the pandemic morass with some decent census increases since March of 2021, now we have to worry about a looming recession and stagflation. Many people in the sector have only seen a growing economy in the past decade and inflation rates hovering between zero and 2%. Stagnation? Never heard of it, well, not for a few decades at least. As a result, we thought we would take a look at what happened to the senior care sector in the last major recession in 2008-2009, as well as the mini-recession in 2020, and see what exactly happened in our sector and what might happen this time around. What we concluded is that... Read More »
When Small Is Better
It is difficult to be nimble when you are large, and with so many headwinds, let’s take a look at Bloom Senior Living, a small operator in the Midwest and Southeast, and how it is faring. At the height of the pandemic, as in March 2021, when everyone was suffering from their lowest occupancy levels, Bloom was no exception when it dipped to 66.7%. The difference is in what happened in the next 15 months. By August 2021, census had increased by 830 basis points at its five communities and jumped another 500 basis points by the end of the year. As of May 1, 2022, census stood at 85%, a more than 1800-basis point increase since the bottom of the market. We have not seen that kind of... Read More »
Sonida Reports Healthy Occupancy Bump in Q1
Sonida Senior Living (formerly Capital Senior Living) came out with its first quarter earnings, just a month after it provided its delayed fourth quarter results. At that time, Sonida had reported some progress after it raised $154.8 million through a major recapitalization in late 2021, including reporting sequential occupancy growth from 82.0% in January to 82.2% in February and 82.6% in March. That equated to a 60-basis point increase for a quarter that always declines. Now, looking at the weighted average occupancy for its same-store portfolio, the first quarter of 2022 came in at 82.3%, which represents a 100-basis point increase from the previous quarter and is 680 basis points... Read More »