Kevin Pascoe
Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead
Thank you, David. I'll concentrate my comments on investment and disposition activity as well as the performance of our major asset classes and operators. We did not sell any properties in the fourth quarter as the market slowed, primarily due to the rapid rise in interest rates, which is making buyer financing more difficult to secure. We currently have 13 properties and assets held for sale with a net book value of $43.3 million and fourth quarter cash rent of $1 million before any consideration of rent concessions. We do have a few closing scheduled, but beyond that, it's difficult to predict the timing of future sales in this market. Fortunately, we completed the majority of our dispositions prior to the recent downturn and have more resources focused on acquisitions again. As Eric and John described, we are in great financial shape and eager to deploy capital at a time when capital is increasingly scarce. We made investments of approximately $60 million in the fourth quarter at an average yield of 7.5%. We are off to a good start this year with $54.8 million in investments at a weighted average yield of 7.7%. This includes the $37.5 million acquisition of two newly developed memory care communities operated by Silverado Senior Living, which is a new relationship for NHI. The pipeline is active with what we believe are more actionable deals than we have seen relative to the last couple of years. That said, we have learned valuable lessons which have improved our underwriting process, and we are willing to be patient as the market shifts in favor of buyers, creating more shareholder value over the long-term. Shifting to asset management. As Eric noted, the portfolio optimization is largely complete, and we started to see positive results. Overall, fourth quarter collections of contractual cash due was strong at 98.1% with deferrals of $1.2 million, which compares to 97.9% and $1.4 million in the third quarter. The optimization efforts have been mostly focused on senior housing need-driven portfolio, which accounts for approximately 27% of adjusted NOI. Coverage trends continue to be positive. Trailing 12-month EBITDARM coverage through September improved sequentially for the third straight quarter to 1.02x and is the highest since the third quarter of 2020. The improvement was driven in large part by Bickford at 1.09x for the trailing 12 period. Bickford's pro forma coverage, which fully accounts for the April 1 rent reset was 1.31x. As outlined in our earnings press release, Bickford's occupancy declined in the fourth quarter and again in January. Leads and sales have actually been strong, but just have not kept pace recently with move-outs, which have been predominantly and unfortunately due to debt. Bickford implemented a high single-digit price increase in December, which is offsetting some of the occupancy decline. One of our high-priority strategic goals has been to strengthen our Bickford portfolio to withstand these types of fluctuations. Aside from Bickford, coverage is improving across the other 47 need-driven properties where we reported coverage at 0.96x, which is a material improvement from a low of 0.76x in 2021. Coverage should benefit in future periods as we complete remaining asset sales and rent restructurings are fully factored in. During the quarter, we placed two operators on cash-based accounting, and we restructured the lease of another operator. These three accounted for 4.6% of the fourth quarter cash collections, which should decline as we are working on selling several properties associated with the cash-based tenants. Continuing with our discretionary senior housing portfolio, this group accounts for 30% of adjusted NOI, including 27% from CCRC entrance fee communities. The entrance fee portfolio continues to perform well as it has throughout the pandemic. SLC, our largest tenant, had EBITDARM coverage of 1.22x, SLC's occupancy improved throughout the fourth quarter and again into January at 84%, up 230 basis points year-over-year. Our senior housing discretionary coverage, excluding SLC, which largely reflects the performance of the entrance fee communities was very comfortable at 1.69x. We are mindful that entrance free properties are more correlated to the housing market to have been monitoring our CCRC geographies and have not experienced any meaningful impact at this point. Remember that the average length of stay in our interest-free communities is six to 10 years, so we believe this somewhat insulates the properties from short-term housing moves. SNF portfolio, which represents 36% of annualized adjusted NOI continues to have solid EBITDARM coverage of 2.41x, including 2.98x at NHC and 2.03x for other SNF operators in our specialty hospital. The year-over-year and sequential decline in the coverage is primarily by NHC whose corporate fixed charge coverage ratio has been impacted by a decline in revenue from federal government stimulus programs. At the NHC property level, coverage benefits from the sale of the seven non-core SNFs in the Northeast during the third quarter. NHC remains an excellent credit along with the Ensign Group anchors the SNF portfolio. Our five other SNF operators have received minimal rent concessions and repayment on this nominal amount began in the fourth quarter. Lastly, in our SHOP portfolio, which represents 3% of adjusted NOI, occupancy decreased 110 basis points sequentially to 75.8%, while RevPOR again declined slightly as we continue to use price is one tool to drive lead volumes and move-ins. Operating expenses continue to show significant inflationary pressures, which contributed to the NOI margin to decline to 16.5% in the fourth quarter. While the 2022 results were below our expectations, we still see significant NOI upside over the longer-term. Our operating partners have repositioned the management teams of the local communities over the last six to nine months. And in conjunction with capital projects planned for 2023, we are expecting fundamentals to improve over the course of 2023. I'll hand the call back to Eric for his closing remarks.