David Sedgwick
Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open
Thanks, Greg, and good morning. On our last call, we discussed how we are regularly reassessing both our portfolio and our operators to determine what changes, if any, are we made to either one. I talked in detail about our decision to replace Trillium in Southern Ohio. For the seven facilities there, we told you, we plan to sell three and re-tenant four. I'm pleased to report that's exactly what happened on September 1. The two most challenging facilities and one other were sold for $28 million, the remaining four were released to our current tenant Providence Group and added to their master lease. In addition, since our last call, we continue to shore up lingering softness in the portfolio by replacing an assisted living operator, resetting rent for a skilled nursing operator and deciding to sell our skilled nursing assets in Michigan. Let me give you some color on each of those three actions. First, effective November 1, we replaced Priority Life Care with Noble Senior Services. This portfolio consists of seven assisted living facilities in four Eastern states. There is no reduction in rent associated with this change. The impetus for the change was a combination of inconsistent performance and priority the strategic shift towards focusing entirely on their consulting and management fee business, instead of leasing, real estate and owning their operations. That being the case, it was clear to us that another operator would likely be able to perform better in these assets and we made the switch. Second, after 18 months of closely monitoring, we decided to reset the rent for our seven facilities in Central Ohio. In prior calls, we've commented on Trio's hard work and the momentum they've built in spite of inheriting some damaging challenges from the previous operator around the time of transition. For example, one building was designated as a special focus facility right before Trio stepped in and several others were kicked out of a preferred provider network right around the time of the transition. They have fought back from these challenges and others, but this quarter, it became apparent that we can no longer view this portfolio's performance as only our runway or timing issue. And so we adjusted the rent by approximately $4.2 million annually. In the supplemental, please note that Trio's coverage reflects their new rent against their TTM EBITDA, and with extra visibility there, we believe their pro forma run rate coverage is approximately 1.2x as performance has been trending ethically. Third, let me talk about Metron in Michigan. Metron recently notified us that the state of Michigan had assessed Metron for millions of dollars in Medicaid overpayments after auditing prior year's cost reports. Shockingly in the next breath, they told us of their intent to exit operations and after initially assuring us that they would intend to pay the rent through the transition, they later said, they would no longer be paying Metron's contractual rent of roughly $350,000 a month until we replace them. We quickly pursued all options, including the parallel paths of either re-tenanting or selling. We now have the portfolio under contract to sell, subject to normal diligence, transfer documentation and licensure. We anticipate proceeds from the sale to be approximately $37 million, resulting in an impairment of approximately $8.8 million. We expect the sale to close within the next few months. As a result of the changes we've made, we've improved both the lease coverages and the tenant credits to back these assets. Proceeds from the Trillium and Metron sales will be recycled in the paying down debt and redeployment into more desirable investments. In addition, we have further expanded our growing bench of backup operators who are eager to step up in case the opportunity presents itself in the future. With these changes, we are pleased to say that we have significantly de-risked our portfolio in a relatively short period of time and these issues are or very soon will be all behind us. The long-term benefits of these changes can't be over-emphasized. Looking at the broader industry, of course, the big news is the implementation of PDPM on October 1. We expect there to be a bit of a learning curve before operators really hit their stride. But in talking with our SNF tenants, they've indicated that the changes are going fairly smoothly and they remain optimistic. So to sum up, we really achieved three important objectives so far this year. First, record new investment growth, with number two, significant portfolio derisking, while number three, maintaining industry-leading low leverage, and we are going into 2020 from a position of significant strength. And with that, I'll hand it over to Mark to talk about the pipeline. Mark?