Brookdale Provides Update
Brookdale Senior Living just released its occupancy update for February, and our first take was that things need to be better than that. Then, we remembered our late 2020 analysis which showed that assisted living occupancy has never increased in the first quarter for each of the past 10 years. Therefore, we should not expect too much this quarter. In this light, Brookdale’s census outlook is not too bad. From January to February, the weighted average occupancy dropped just 10 basis points to 73.3%. Even better, the month-end occupancy increased by 20 basis points from the end of January to 74.4%. The problem is that census at the end of September was 74.2%, so we have seen little overall... Read More »
Sabra Issues Business Update
This difficult winter is sparing few owners and operators in terms of occupancy and labor expenses. So, Sabra Health Care REIT was not alone in its latest quarterly earnings report, and in fact, things could have been worse. First, Sabra entered into a definitive agreement to amend its master lease with Avamere, effective February 1. This reduced annual based rent by roughly 30% to $30.7 million, or an annual run rate reduction of $0.06 per diluted common share. As a condition to the amendment, Avamere has paid past due rent for December 2021 totaling $3.6 million and has agreed to pay January 2022 rent totaling $3.7 million by March 25, 2022. Sabra does have the opportunity to recapture... Read More »
Ventas Announces Q4 Earnings
Ventas announced its quarterly and annual earnings report, and we were interested to learn that the REIT has acted on nearly two-thirds of its seniors housing portfolio via acquisition, disposition, development, lease resolution or operator transaction since 2020. The pandemic spared few communities, so that level of portfolio management really required all hands on deck. And the pain isn’t over for many properties, unfortunately, with more distress almost certainly set to hit the market in 2022. That will mean even more dispositions, value-add acquisitions and lease/operator restructurings from Ventas. Activity in 2021 included nearly $2.6 billion in acquisitions of independent... Read More »
The Ensign Group Reports Another Solid Quarter
The Ensign Group did not disappoint yet again with its latest quarterly results. The senior care provider reported an increase in GAAP diluted earnings per share of $3.42 for 2021, an increase of 11.8% over the prior year, while adjusted EPS rose 16.3% year over year to a record-high $3.64. Consolidated GAAP revenues increased by 9.5% to $2.6 billion in 2021, with GAAP net income reaching $194.7 million for the year, an increase of 14.2% compared with 2020. Those are all healthy increases in a year of numerous operational headwinds, with large companies especially susceptible to high employee turnover and stagnant census. That is the beauty of the decentralized operating model that Ensign... Read More »
Brookdale Month-End Occupancy Falls in November
The brevity of Brookdale Senior Living’s occupancy update said a lot: there was not much good news to report. After eight consecutive months of increases, month-end occupancy decreased by 20 basis points from 74.5% in October to 74.3% in November. There could be numerous reasons for this, from the Omicron variant to the onset of the flu season to a staffing shortage, but demand clearly did not overcome these factors in the month of November. And these headwinds are not getting better anytime soon. Brookdale expects to continue publishing monthly occupancy through December 2021 reporting, so we could learn whether this decline is a blip or a trend. Brookdale did... Read More »Schedule a demo
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