T. Andrew Smith
Analyst · Barclays
Good morning. I want to add my welcome to all of our shareholders and other participants for our second quarter earnings call. I'll lead off today with some brief comments about the second quarter. I will then turn the call over to Mark to discuss our results in more detail before opening the call to your questions. We are pleased with our second quarter results, which follow a strong first quarter. As a result, we have raised our full year CFFO guidance to between $2.35 and $2.45 per share. During the quarter, we produced $0.61 of adjusted CFFO per share. The $74.8 million of CFFO in the second quarter represents an 8% increase over the second quarter of 2012. We drove this year-over-year improvement for rate growth and occupancy gains, strong entrance fee sales and solid expense management. Like the first quarter, our rate growth moderately exceeded our expectations. Excluding skilled nursing, our senior housing average monthly revenue per unit increased 2.7%, up slightly from last quarter's 2.6%. I exclude skilled nursing because of the impact of sequestration and the sensitivity of skilled rates to the mix between private pay, managed care and Medicare census, all of which can change very quickly. Looking specifically at occupancy, we increased our quarterly average occupancy by 60 basis points for the consolidated portfolio over the second quarter of 2012. Sequentially, our consolidated occupancy was essentially flat with the first quarter when you exclude skilled nursing, which typically declines seasonally from Q1 to Q2. As expected, we saw an improving occupancy trend during the second quarter and ended with June's average occupancy at 88.7%. July followed the trend with average occupancy of 20 basis points to 88.9%. This year's trend in occupancy growth is typical of our historical experience, where occupancy turns mid-second quarter and increases over the remainder of the year. We expect the same for the balance of this year. For us, another major of demand is our Independent Living entry fee sales. Our 128 sales and $16.4 million of net entry fee cash flow were both records for our second quarter. This strong performance was evidenced across all of our entry fee markets. It reflected our focus on sales execution and the improving home resale environment in our local markets. This segment of our business has a long sales cycle, and our sales staff has done a nice job in keeping current with our perspective leads. Our national branding activation, which kicked off in May, has gotten off to a good start, and we remain excited about this effort. For those of you who have not had the opportunity to see our new television ads, I encourage you to take a look at them on our website at brookdale.com or on Brookdale's YouTube page. Establishing our brand is a bold initiative, and it is a critical element of our long-term strategy. Our goal is to take advantage of a very fragmented industry by leveraging our size, our geographical scale and the depth of our product offerings to establish Brookdale as the first truly national brand name in senior living. In a nutshell, through strong public relations and advertising campaigns on a local, regional and national basis and in all forms of media, and by activating the brand internally, we expect to educate -- better educate the public about Brookdale, who we are, what we do and what we stand for. This supports our goal of engaging potential residents and their adult children earlier whether than later in their decision-making process. So we have a -- they have time to partner with us on clear choices, rather than when they are in crisis. Over time, we are confident that the name Brookdale will become top of the mind for our prospective customers, who are searching for senior living solutions across the country. And we are confident that the name Brookdale will come to symbolize the trusted provider of the highest-quality senior living solutions for the growing population of seniors and their families that need our services. We expect substantial benefits from this initiative for all of our stakeholders, our current and future residents, their families, our associates and our shareholders. Although this is a long-term effort, we are measuring short-term results to track our progress since the brand activation began in May. A few examples of early performance indicators comparing the 90 days after activation to the 90 days before, our website visits were up 26%, mobile device traffic was up 66% and completed leads from our website increased 11%. We also continue to evolve our sales and marketing activities to adapt to a changing marketplace. We have expanded our third-party call center from our initial pilot program. It is successfully handling inbound inquiries, qualifying leads, capturing contact data and routing it to the appropriate local sales staff. In July, this call center routed 42,000 inquiries to our communities, up 24% from May. Furthermore, we are piloting an internal call center staff with sales specialists, whose responsibility is to cultivate relationships with our older leads from our lead bank of more than 200,000. Since May, our internal call center has supported 27 communities and generated 290 visits and 39 move-ins. This group is also piloting a live Internet chat function on our website during selected hours, which is being positively received. All of these initiatives are about winning the race to make a faster, deeper connection with our prospects to establish their trust and present our solutions. I'm also pleased with our second quarter expense management as the cost control initiatives we began in 2012 continue to bear fruit. Our second quarter senior housing operating expenses grew 2.6% over the second quarter of last year, resulting in a 50 basis point increase in our senior housing facility operating income margin. As we have said before, we are later focused on growing organically by improving our operational sales and marketing effectiveness. We are also continuing to invest in renovating our portfolio to improve the competitive position of our communities in order to drive occupancy and rate growth. We have completed 7 Program Max projects so far this year, and we have 16 more under construction, with an additional 18 in active development. Reinvestment in our portfolio continues to be our highest priority for capital investment. In addition, we are actively evaluating a number of acquisition opportunities. During the quarter, we acquired 2 communities and announced an agreement to acquire 7 more. We expect this 7-community transaction to close prior to the end of the third quarter, and we expect it to add $0.01 to $0.02 to full year CFFO per share. We remain a firm believer that the industry will continue to provide ample opportunities for consolidation. We have demonstrated ability to acquire and integrate assets and operations accretively, and we will continue to evaluate these opportunities. In conclusion, our second quarter results, like those for the first quarter, demonstrated great deal of positive momentum for Brookdale in an economic and industry environment that is gradually strengthening. We believe Brookdale is favorably positioned for the significant long-term growth opportunities before us, as the differentiated leader in the senior living industry. We are confident that we have the talent, the platform and the resources to leverage these opportunities to produce long-term improvement in our financial results and, therefore, increase long-term shareholder value. I want to thank all of our associates for their hard work each and every day, as they provide high-quality services and care to our residents and their families. Their focus on our mission of enriching lives is what makes the difference for so many people. I also want to thank each of you for your interest in Brookdale. Now here is Mark to review our financial results in more detail.