Chad Keetch
Analyst · Chad Vanacore with Stifel. Your line is now open
Thank you, Christopher. During the quarter, we paid a cash dividend of $4 [ph] per share, which was an increase of 6.3% over the prior year. This is the 14th consecutive year we have increased our dividend. During the quarter and since, we announced the following acquisitions: on April 1, 2017, Rehabilitation Center of Des Moines, a 74-bed skilled nursing operation in Iowa; on May 1, 2017, Meadow View Nursing and Rehabilitation, a 112-bed skilled nursing facility in Nampa, Idaho; also on May 1, Voto Home Health, a Medicare-certified home health agency servicing King County, Washington; on June 1, 2017, Heritage Park Healthcare and Rehabilitation, a 115-bed skilled nursing facility in Roy, Utah; and Wide Horizons Intermediate Care Facility , an 83-bed intermediate care facility for individuals with intellectual disability in Ogden, Utah; on June 16th. We announced the acquisition of Meadowcreek Senior Living, a Senior Living, a 37-unit assisted living in Paris, Texas; Maple Meadows Assisted Living, a 37-unit assisted living in Paris, Texas; Maple Meadows Assisted Living, a 19-unit assisted living facility in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; North Point Senior Living, a 19-unit assisted living facility in Kenosha, Wisconsin; and Lakepoint Villa Assisted Living, a 19-unit assisted living facility in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; on July 1st, The Villas at Sunny Acres, a post-acute care retirement community with 134 skilled nursing beds, 35 assisted living units and 109independent living units, all set on a 64-acre campus in Thornton, Colorado; and Medallion Post Acute Rehabilitation, a 60-bed skilled nursing operation; and Medallion Villas, a 44-unit assisted living and 64-unit independent living operation both set on a single health care campus in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and finally, on August 1st, Parkside Senior Living, a 20-unit assisted living facility in Neenah, Wisconsin. As we discussed last quarter, the company completed the sale and simultaneously lease of 2 skilled nursing facilities and one assisted living community to Mainstreet Health Investments, Inc. The triple-net master lease includes an initial 20-year term and CPI- based annual escalators. The properties are located within high-density neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Phoenix Metro markets and have been owned and operated by Ensign for many years. Simultaneously, MHI released – MHI, I mean, Mainstreet, released Ensign from its obligations on 3 transitional care facilities in Kansas and Texas. This leaves us with a total of 7 health care resorts that will be operated by an Ensign subsidiary, including 5 in Kansas, 1 in Texas and 1 in Colorado. We again want to emphasize the purpose in continuing to acquire real estate. Because almost all of our real estate assets we acquire are underperforming at the time we acquire them, each owned asset provides us with a significant opportunity to create value and use that value to help maintain a healthy balance sheet and to prepare for future growth opportunities. Our recent sale leaseback transaction is one of many ways we have to capture some of the value we’ve created in our real estate assets, while simultaneously strengthening our already healthy balance sheet and ensuring that we will continue serving each of these communities for decades to come. As of today, we now own the real estate of 61 of the 227 health care facilities within the portfolio, 58 of those are completely unlevered, with 20 hospice agencies, 18 home health agencies and 3 home care businesses in 14 states. As we’ve done in the past, we are also nearing the final stages of completing a HUD financing on 17 of our 61 owned assets. As with any HUD financing, the process is long and complex, but we expect to complete this HUD-based mortgage transaction during the third quarter. This will also allow us to pay down most of our revolving line of credit and to establish long-term fixed financing at very favorable rates. As we do so, we add to our liquidity and our ability to acquire well-performing and struggling skilled nursing operations, assisted living operations and startup or early-stage hospice and home health agencies as well as other post- acute care businesses. We are evaluating a collection of several smaller attractive acquisition opportunities and believe that more favorable pricing is on the horizon. As we’ve seen many times before, potential changes to reimbursement continue to generate a lot of buying opportunities at very attractive prices. We expect to acquire some of these operations later in the third and fourth quarter and continue to be very picky buyers and will remain true to our locally-driven approach to each and every acquisition we make. And with that, I’ll hand it back to Christopher.