Earnings Labs

Strawberry Fields REIT LLC (STRW)

Q1 2025 Earnings Call· Sun, May 11, 2025

$12.65

+3.31%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, my name is Holly and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Strawberry Fields REIT First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeff Bajtner, Chief Investment Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Jeffrey Bajtner

Analyst

Thank you and welcome to Strawberry Fields REIT's Q1 2025 earnings call. I am the Chief Investment Officer and joining me on the call today are Moishe Gubin, our Chairman and CEO, and Greg Flamion, our CFO. Earlier today, the company issued its Q1 2025 earnings results which are available on the company's investor relations website. Participants should be aware that this call is being recorded and listeners are advised that any forward-looking statements made on today's call are based on management's current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs about Strawberry Fields REIT's business and environment in which it operates. These statements may include projections regarding future financial performance, dividends, acquisitions, investments, returns, financings, and may or may not reference other matters affecting the company's business or the businesses of its tenants, including factors that are beyond its control. Additionally, references will be made during this call to non-GAAP financial results. Investors are encouraged to review these non-GAAP financial measures, as well as explanation and reconciliation of these measures to the comparable GAAP results included on the non-GAAP measure reconciliation page in our investor presentation. And now on to discussing Strawberry Fields REIT and our Q1 2025 performance. I want to start by sharing some key highlights. During the quarter, the company collected 100% of its contractual rents. On January 2, the company closed the acquisition for the purchase of six health care facilities located in Kansas. The purchase price for the facilities was $24 million and released under a new 10 year master lease agreement. Under the master lease, the tenants will be on a triple net basis, and the tenants have two, five year options to extend the lease. The facilities are operated as five skilled nursing facilities and one assisted living facility and are comprised of 354 licensed beds.…

Greg Flamion

Analyst

Thank you, Jeff and welcome to the Strawberry Fields Q1 2025 earnings call. I'd like to start off by looking at our financials for the first quarter of 2025. Total assets increased by $199 million or 31.5% compared to Q1 2024. This growth was primarily driven by activity related to our 2024, 2025 real estate acquisitions, as well as the re-tenanting of the Landmark master lease into the Kentucky master lease. On the liabilities and equity side, we also saw an increase largely attributable to the funding used to finance these acquisitions. Turning to the income statement, total revenue for Q1 2025 was $37.3 million, up from $27.8 million in the same period last year, representing a 34.1% year-over-year increase. This growth was fueled by the timing of our key acquisitions over the past 12 months, including the Missouri Master Lease, which closed in December 2024, as well as the re-tenanting of existing leases, most notably the Landmark to Kentucky master lease, which started in January 2025. Net income for the quarter was $6.99 million or $0.13 a share compared to $5.99 million or $0.12 a share in Q1 2024. This increase reflects higher revenue, partially offset by increases in depreciation, amortization, and interest expenses. Now moving on to financial highlights, AFFO for Q1 2025 was $16.8 million up from $13.1 million a year ago, representing a 28% increase. Based on these results, we are projecting full year 2025 AFFO of $67.3 million which would represent a 20% year-over-year growth. Please note that the projection is based solely on the annualization of Q1 results and does not include any contribution from future acquisitions. With this projection, we expect our AFFO CAGR to be 13.8%. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 2025 came in at $30.4 million compared to $21.4 million in Q1 2024 marking a 42% year-over-year increase. We are projecting a full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA of $128.8 million again based upon annualized Q1 results and excluding the impact of future acquisitions. Based on this forecast, we can expect an adjusted EBITDA CAGR of 12.2%. Finally, I want to touch on our dividend. As of March 31, 2025, our dividend yield was 4.7% with an annualized AFFO payout ratio of 46.2%. Both metrics remain below the average of peers in our sector, reflecting our commitment to retain capital in support of an active and robust acquisition pipeline. Looking ahead, we will continue to evaluate opportunities for dividend growth and remain committed to aligning future increases with the strength of our underlying performance. And now Moishe Gubin will continue the presentation with the portfolio highlights.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

All right. Thank you, Greg. I'm going to continue on Slide 4 going over portfolio highlights. As Jeff said earlier in his comments, good quarter. Collected 100% of our rents. We've got our facilities up to 132 facilities in 11 states. We're marching towards 15,000 beds, 1.02 billion in total asset value at acquisition, which today market value of those same assets are about $1.4 billion. We're up to 16 master leases, which is about 90% of our portfolio. There's seven years remaining, what people call WALT, which is a weighted average lease term, that's remaining is over seven years. We expect that number to improve with the new leases that we enter into our brand new 10 year leases. And in fact, one of the new leases we're going to be entering into should be a 15 year lease with two, five year renewals. That being said, our EBITDARM coverage has improved quarter-over-quarter. In fact, most of the metrics from our operators first quarter, which is usually the worst quarter of the year, for the operators because of February being a short month. And beginning of the year, you have all the payroll taxes and 80% of the costs of our tenants are payroll. And so but with that, we had a really nice coverage of almost a 1.9 EBITDA coverage. We have a robust pipeline, which Jeff might have mentioned, and we expect to end the year after everything to be between $100 million, $200 million adjusted by the end of half of the year, we should break $100 million already. So, god willing, we continue on our march towards growing our company. Slide 5, actually continues at the annual shareholder meeting that we had last week, where we were talking at how well we've grown and how…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Your first question for today is from Rob Stevenson with Janney.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

Good afternoon, guys. Can you just dive into the Landmark lease and sort of talk about what's going on there and what prompted that in a little bit detail?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Sure. Thanks, Rob. Good to hear your voice. Yes, I'm just going to talk in roundabout numbers. Me and Greg or Jeff can add the actual numbers. But, basically, what happened was the facilities were doing well, and there was an opportunity for us to recast a new lease with a new operator. And so what we did was we struck a deal with our previous tenant for them to surrender their lease, so that we would have the ability to enter into a new 10-year lease with two five-year renewals, and we recast it at a one and a quarter coverage to what the previous tenant was doing. And with that, we had a nice increase to our top-line, and our deal with the predecessor was that we would pay them about a million dollars. The owner of the previous company would pay them about a million dollars a month for the next five years, which is right around the increase in rent for the first year. And that Strawberry would win, because we'd have a brand new lease with a new tenant that we could grow with, which we had before also, but this is just diversifies the pool a little further. And Strawberry gets the benefit of a 3% increases on the higher rent number. And meanwhile, the other operator leaves having made was getting paid out over five years. And, so we net out to for the first year, it nets out to be around the same number as we were making before with an increase at top line and an increase of the expenses on the bottom line. But after year one, we get the 3% increases at strawberry. And then after year five, we get the full benefit of the higher rent amount. So we felt it was good for us at Strawberry. We end up in the same position or better. The tenant leaving, leaves happy, and the tenant incoming starts happy. And, I think we've already had their first month or two months of operation, and they actually have a rent coverage in like one and three quarters, even though we built it out at one and a quarter. They end up beating that by a nice number. So that's the general story. If you need exact numbers, Greg or Jeff, I'm sure able to walk you through the exact numbers if you want them. Just let me know.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

So the Landmark lease was somewhere, call it about $11 million and so. The new lease is $23.3 million and so that's plus or minus a little bit, that's essentially what's happening here?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Exactly.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

The level of the increase?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Exactly. And in the long run, we make out more money with a new operator that's hungry and we're able to grow with them. And, I think it's very positive for us.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

Okay. And then the million dollars a month is just going to be coming out of the rental expense number, which was like $3.8 million in the first quarter?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

You would think so, but under GAAP accounting, the way this gets recorded is actually, we created a debt on the books, okay? And then as that debt gets paid down, the debt goes lower. And on the other side, we amortize the payments being made, and therefore, you end up netting out. So it's not netted in the top. What you're thinking is exactly how I would have done it, but that doesn't conform to gap accounting, unfortunately. And so basically, you're going to see a higher top line number. And by the way, this is similar to like three, four years ago when the gap rule changed with regards to how to record property taxes that are collected from tenants. So property taxes come out come in, and we pay it out for them. It comes in as a top line revenue number, and it goes out as an expense. They net out again to the same rent number that's supposed to be the real rent number. But over here so if it's that's I hope I answered what you said. That's basically how it plays out.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

Okay. And then I guess the other one's for me. Anything non-recurring in either revenues or expenses in the first quarter income statement that we should be aware of?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

I don't think so. Greg, is there anything that you could think of that's non-recurring?

Greg Flamion

Analyst

Nothing comes to mind. No. It was a pretty clean quarter.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

Okay. And then last one for me. Did you guys issue any shares under the ATM in the quarter?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

I'm going to defer to Greg to that also. I know we haven't been doing anything because the stock price is down, because our limit at some point was $12 a share. Greg, did we sell anything under the ATM in the first quarter? It would have been January or February.

Greg Flamion

Analyst

Yes. We did sell some shares. Actually, it was a $190,000 give or take. It was about $2.2 million.

Jeffrey Bajtner

Analyst

[Indiscernible] $11.75 a share.

Greg Flamion

Analyst

$11. 75 a share. Yes. Thank you.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

Got it. So 190,000 shares and $11.75 a share?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Yes.

Greg Flamion

Analyst

Correct.

Jeffrey Bajtner

Analyst

But then we also…

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

$2.2 million you said?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Yes, but we also bought back shares, when the stock went down. What was our stock repurchase for the quarter?

Greg Flamion

Analyst

That was in Q2.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

That already happened in the second quarter. All right. Never mind.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

Well, I guess the question, because I saw that the $2.5 million remain the same from the K as of December 31st. How much shares have you bought back thus far in the second quarter?

Greg Flamion

Analyst

I don't have the exact number from you, unfortunately, but it's I think about, well, it's about over around a 100,000 shares, I believe.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Yes, and we bought it around $10 a share. So we've theoretically, we made a profit on our own stock.

Rob Stevenson

Analyst

Okay. All right. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the time, and have a great weekend.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

All right. Thanks, Rob. Have a good weekend.

Operator

Operator

Your next question for today is from Rich Anderson with Wedbush.

Rich Anderson

Analyst

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon, morning, wherever you are. So just a question on the map, the beautiful map, Moshe, you referred to with all the nice colors. There's one color yellow. I'd like to ask about the miscellaneous operators. I'm just curious if you have a plan there to kind of blend them in with other existing operators, what that strategy looks like for you going forward?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

So that's a good question and good hearing your voice as well, Rich. Yes, the way, so you got to look at it by state. So Oklahoma, Oklahoma is just the first one that caught my eye as I opened up the map here to be able to answer your question. So Oklahoma, we're growing a master lease there. And so the short answer to your question is we're not going to consolidate individuals to make, all the yellows to be one guy. But what we are looking to do and we are doing is that each one of the little groups of yellows that are individuals, we're looking to grow their master leases so that they could be a standalone color, I guess, on the map. So Oklahoma, we have a deal for another facility, and then we have another facility after that, and then I'll end up bringing it to, I think four with that operator. Texas, we have two different master leases in Texas. One of those master leases, we are actually growing that master lease as well. That one's a little bit anti to what we typically do because we're bringing them to a whole new state with a bigger portfolio. But it's going to be still in one big master lease, which will make that relationship go up to, I think 11 facilities and that'll be good. And then Illinois, we've been slowly but surely taking out the single operated facilities, which are real legacy facilities, and we've been slowly transitioning them out of mom and pop and into a new operator, that has a master lease with us already. I think we have, I think three, no, maybe we already have four or five facilities with them, and then we'll be able to grow that. So what you should see assuming everything happens the way we expect it to happen in '25, that at the end of the year, we'll see that Oklahoma will be their own color because they'll have a bunch of properties there and then you'll get rid of a couple of the Texas, and then we'll add another state, and that'll be different color. And so will be narrowed down to very few singles, basically is what we want to get rid of. We want everything on the master leases. Like I said earlier, I think we're about 90% of our facilities are master leased. And if we could get the last 10%, into master leases at a minimum of four or five facilities, then then that'll be getting to where we want to be.

Rich Anderson

Analyst

Okay. I'm intrigued by the expectation to be at a $100 million by the end of the second quarter. And you mentioned, not using equity at this level. So what is the game plan if everything sort of holds constant right now? Is it just more debt, cash? How much cash do you have to use right now? I'm just curious, what the funding strategy would be to get to that incremental $60 million?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

So that deal, that's right around $60 million. We are going to take $20 million of cash from our balance sheet, and then we're going to take $30 million in a conventional loan with a bank. And then the last $10 million, we will most likely just draw on our bond debt in Israel, to be able to just meet our cash needs for the second quarter.

Rich Anderson

Analyst

Okay. And last for me, are you having any sort of issues trying to underwrite deals going forward with some questions around Medicaid, the Congressional budgetary process? Is that getting in the way at all in your conversations? Are you changing your underwriting to kind of protect yourself a little bit? I'm just curious what's going on there in your mind?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

So two points there. First of all, our underwriting hasn't changed in many, many years, and we've talked about that. I'm sure but you've already heard me say it at least three or four times of how disciplined we are and how we underwrite. That hasn't changed the factors that we need our tenants to come into the deal, their experience and their financial strength, and I always talk about their integrity, right? Those are the three, basically the pillars that hold up our world. And so from that point of view, nothing's changed. We haven't changed our bogey as far as what return we want and our debt service coverage ratio we want on day one and rent coverage that we want on day one. That all stays exactly what it's been for many years. And in fact, our board's really, really adamant and at the same time, really strong and pushing and proud that we remain stable and consistent. And in over the years, they've told me if we can't find deals that meet our box, just don't do deals. And that's not a problem that we've had, but nevertheless that's a philosophy that we have. As far as the Medicaid conversation, I mean that is a very, very common conversation that I have both with investors, with bankers as well. I mean, keep in mind our balance sheet today, really our debt, the way our debt is structured, the tranches that we have, we don't talk to HUD about any of this stuff, so they're not out of the contention. Conventional lenders are health care lenders because that's the space that you have to find a lender that knows health care then. And so they all know what's going on, and it's really just a conversation. It's…

Rich Anderson

Analyst

Okay. Sounds good. Thanks.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from Gaurav Mehta with Alliance Global Partners.

Gaurav Mehta

Analyst

Thank you. Good afternoon. I wanted to go back to your comments around $60 million of acquisitions expected in 2Q and on the funding portion coming from that. Can you provide some color on what's the cost of that for you guys today to fund that acquisition?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Yes, so our cost and again it's a 10 cap. So you take round about $59 million deal, right. So our rents will be 5.9, right? So you know that side of the equation. On the other side of the equation, we have our $20 million of cash. We have $30 million which should be or $29 million or $30 million, which should be SOFR 300 thereabout. And then the bond debt, the other $10 million. Right now, that rate is about 6.25 and it's going to probably all in cost of doing an issuance or doing, it probably ends up being probably close to 7%, and that should be fixed for I think the bank debt is going to be fixed either three to five -- I think it's three to five years. And on the bond debt, it's going to be, I think what we're going to have is a duration of probably five years, which might be a seven year deal. And you guys know how to math to figure out the duration on a seven year money based on a 4% to 6% principal pay down, annually. So I guess blended cost, right, if it's 20% is 0, 10% I'm sorry -- If $20 million which is one third, 33% is at zero, I guess and then the other, like 40% of that is at SOFR 300, and then the other one at 7%. I think probably you blend it out. It's probably somewhere low sixes altogether, 6.5% 6.25%. Somewhere around there is what our cost is. Does that make sense?

Gaurav Mehta

Analyst

In your prepared remarks, you also talked about looking at line of credit. Can you maybe provide some color on the timing of such a line of credit and what kind of size are you looking at?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Yes, that is sure. I'm kind of like breaking the Jewish law, or I guess it's in Bible for Christians as well as coveting thy neighbor's stuff. So I'm coveting the neighbor of the REITs that are out there that are more mature than we are, where at this point, they have a line of credit out there. And so we've spoken to basically three banks. And the product that basically that's coming along is an unsecured line of credit, which basically eats up our current, our current bank debt for the most part. Not all of it. I mean, the current bank that we're doing on this deal, that $30 million is going to have to sit outstanding because of the prepayment penalty. But the rest of our stuff would be absorbed. And basically, our whole balance sheet other than the HUD debt, would all be on secured debt, which is good for business because our HUD debt today is about 39%. So, having the rest of our debt, be in a portfolio that only 39% is secured and the rest of it's unsecured, that works for the model. And we're looking at anywhere between $200 million to $400 million or $200 million to $500 million. And pricing on that is still probably SOFR 200 to 300 range. Maybe it's not going to be less than 2. Definitely won't be more than 3. It'll be somewhere in the middle of that, maybe 2.5, 2.75 and that should give us the flexibility. Once we get that done, which hopefully that's a 2025 deal as well. Once we get that done, then going forward, we just draw on the line when we need it. And then hopefully, sell equity to pay it down and then still continue with our original philosophy of taking debt and moving it to HUD when we can. And so you figure if things continue the way the way they're going. Like I said, 39% would be secured debt with HUD long-term money, average rate in the 3s, and then everything else basically sitting SOFR 300 or below in mainly unsecured. And then depending on where the stock trades, that'll keep us where we can keep our total leverage to be between 45 and 55. And our world would be in total balance, which is what where we want to be. How that plays out, timing, we are working every day. So God willing things happen in the right time. And so that's why I'm saying that hopefully this all happens by the end of 2025.

Gaurav Mehta

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. That's all I have.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

All right. Thank you, Gaurav. Be well.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from Barry Oxford with Colliers.

Barry Oxford

Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys. When you guys look at acquisitions going forward and you already alluded to the 10% cap rate on the current assets. Are you still seeing deals or a fair amount of them, at the 10% cap rate while being able to stick to your rent coverage for the tenants? Or is that starting to get a little narrow and maybe you have to come into 9.5 to kind of keep the tenant at the rent coverage where you'd like to see them?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

No, absolutely not. And I guess really, if I really wanted to prepare that I would start trending or tracking quarter-over-quarter, what our pipeline has between because we divide our pipeline between hot, warm, and cold, basically or high, low, medium likelihood to get done. And so we haven't changed our standard at all. Everything begins at a 1.25 minimum, and everything is a 10 cap. We haven't bought less than an effect. On some of these deals, we've even gotten a little bit better than the 10, and maybe 10 point something, maybe not up to really 11, but somewhere over there as far as our return. And today our pipeline is easily like, $300 million and out of that, we probably expect, like I said giving the guidance of between $100 million and $200 million knowing full well that we expect by half a year, we'll have broken 100 already. So last half of the year, we have enough in our pipeline at our exact investment protocol to be able to do the rest of hopefully another $100 million for the second half. So we should be able to do that. We don't have any problem at all. And out of the rest of that $300 million, you're probably talking about low likelihood of on maybe a $100 million something of it. And so we'll keep working. And God willing, we'll find more deals, and we'll keep doing what we're doing.

Barry Oxford

Analyst

Would you have to access the equity markets to make the second half goals for acquisitions?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

I would love to. I truly would love to. It's the marketplace. I mean, anyone that's willing to make an effort and do the math to figure out what our NAV is, in my mind at a 10 cap NAV, our stock price is worth, each share is worth close to $13 a share. I don't think it's fair to my shareholders to sell stock at a number below that, because they don't deserve to be diluted. We have a great company making a lot of money doing business the right way. But I'm expecting that the marketplace at some point, makes that little effort and realizes how undervalued our stock price is and the stock moves. But to answer your question, if I have it my way, and the stock gets to where it should be or at least above the NAV number, then we would do a raise most likely, in the second half of the year $75 million, and then we would use all that money either on new deals or to pay down debt, and then we get through 2025. If not, we have availability on our bond debt. Like I said, it's somewhere between 6% and 7%. We have availability, right now for easily a couple of hundred million dollars, and the marketplace wants us there, and it'll be easy to get done. And again, the problem with the bond debt, which is what I want to avoid, is that that bond debt is more, there's prepayment penalties and their investor wants a coupon long term. And so, like it's not as flexible of being able to get in and out of that deal. And so I'm trying to avoid it as long as I can. But if I have to do, I have to do. And we just, because the deals make sense. It's good for our company. And the price is not expensive. I mean, it just locks me in for a longer term. And so that's something I'd like to avoid, but it's something that we'll have to do to be able to close a deal.

Barry Oxford

Analyst

Okay. That all makes sense. When I'm looking, you mentioned that you had two more hires and maybe another Asset Manager by the end of the year. When I think about your G&A as a percent of revenue, are you going to be able to keep that fairly constant, or will we see that rise, because of the new hires, or will the revenue, will the ramp in revenue kind of keep Q&A as a percent of revenue fairly static?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

No, no, no. When you see a full quarter, which will be the second quarter, you'll see our total payroll went up. Actually, first quarter had a onetime, I think Rob asked if there was a onetime. And so first quarter of this year, unless we accrued it in fourth quarter, I gave a bonus a couple hundred thousand dollars to our employees, and we gave it to them in half stock and half cash. I don't know if that was accrued in the fourth quarter or if that was just

Greg Flamion

Analyst

It was accrued. Yes.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

It was accrued. So fine. So ignoring that comment then, you're talking about an increase to the G&A in second quarter of maybe max a hundred thousand dollars a quarter. I mean, it's not a big number at all to anybody that's on this call. And then the last hire that we need to bring in is it's not a six figure salary. So, and other than that, our cost of running our business should remain flat. Like, that's it. And unless I'm missing something, I don't see. We're running real well. We're timely on producing financial statements. We're timely, and we have good analytics, and we have a good knowledge of our tenants' operations through the asset managers. The only reason another asset manager is needed is because we should end the second quarter with over a 140 facilities. And if you divide that by three people, it's a little bit stretching them thin. The good news is that, 50 facilities or so are infinity. So we don't have to worry about that because nobody cares more about these facilities than Michael and I. And so, but they still have an asset manager that has a job to do, but nevertheless, you don't have to be as worried than you do for, like, the real outside operators. And but, you take 140/3, that's an awful lot of work to be done. And when we have a rule that you got to get to the facilities at least twice a year, just travel dates alone makes it that there's not enough time to really know your buildings well as far as managing the asset. So I feel like we have to do that, because I want to stay with our model, making sure. We haven't had a bill to get…

Barry Oxford

Analyst

Okay. For sure. I appreciate all the color on that. That's very helpful. Thanks, guys. Have a good weekend.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

All right, Barry. Be good.

Barry Oxford

Analyst

Yep.

Operator

Operator

Your next question for today is from Mark Smith with Lake Street Capital.

Mark Smith

Analyst

Hi, guys. Most of my questions have been hit here, but I did want to just big picture with the new administration, if we're seeing any changes on kind of regulatory or kind of payment from Medicare, Medicaid front?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Yes. Hi, Mark. I only know what I hear from our tenants and Michael. I think it's too early to really gauge how the environment is going to be. If it goes back to the way it was when it was Trump 1.0, then those were great times for the nursing homes with regards to, how the regulators, the surveyors treated the facilities, and what the mandate was from D.C. on how to be a support and a help as opposed to wanting to put their thumb on people and be difficult like it was the last four years. Outside of that, we've already seen increases to Medicaid rates in Illinois, in Kentucky. I don't know if there was any other specific states where there was increases, because a couple of the other states are all cost based, so they go up anyway on a regular basis from the annual cost report being filed. So I would say that it's, I don't expect there to be a negative. I happen to be an optimist to begin with, so take that with a grain of salt. But I haven't heard anything bad, but I expect like I said, the regulatory side to be an improvement. And on the financial side, I also I expect it to at the end of the day, be status quo. I don't think there's any, like I touched on earlier, right? There's a social need for the nursing homes to take care of the elderly here in America, and it needs money to take care of it. So they have to come through at the end of the day, this the congress and the government.

Mark Smith

Analyst

Yes. The other question for me was just, it sounds like a lot of confidence in the acquisitions coming up here in the pipeline, especially in near term here kind of Q2. Any other commentary you can give just on your confidence in the pipeline? And then, as we look at acquisitions, are you needing to expand more geographically or do you think here in '25, you can kind of hit your goals, still within the states that you currently operate?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Yes. We have enough pipeline to hit our goals in the current states adding to the current master leases, which is great for us. So that means we'd be growing in Oklahoma. We'd be growing in Missouri. We'd be growing in Kansas. We'd be growing potentially in Texas. And so that'll get us to where we want to be. We look at a lot of deals, like we have been looking at a lot of deals year-over-year. We look at literally in a given year, we close, I don't know 10 deals. And on a good year, on a bad year, we close no deals, and we look at 300, 400 deals a year, maybe more. If you count in all the MOB stuff that I'm always looking at, even though we never do any of those deals, but I still see it and I go, oh, it's just like a mile down from a nursing home. This could be a great for the nursing home boom because all the doctors that are there could maybe end up being a help to the nursing home, and we end up not doing any of those. But we spent time looking at them anyway attempted Indiana, Greencastle Indiana as well. So we look at that, but I think if a deal came in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alabama just growing the nucleus to expand, but not go that way too far, not go this way too far. Ohio would be a great state to grow into grow more in, but we just haven't found a deal in Ohio for whatever reason. That's been a state that I'd love to have grown for years, and we haven't grown. But, yes, to answer your question, like I said is within our within our portfolio, with our current master leases, we have enough volume to be able to hit this year's targets, and then some. And we are looking at stuff that's outside. And if we find something and the deals work, we will be glad to do it again. It has to be in a master lease structure. It has to be big enough, at least 500 beds, more than that 700 beds. And so, yes, that's god willing. So '25, I'm not going to disappoint anybody. '26, I'm an optimist, but who knows what happens in '26. Hopefully, that answers your question, Mark.

Mark Smith

Analyst

Perfect. Thank you.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

You're welcome.

Mark Smith

Analyst

Yes. Absolutely. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

I will now hand the call back to Jeff to answer webcast questions.

Jeffrey Bajtner

Analyst

Thank you very much. We have a couple questions from the folks at Freedom Capital Markets. Their first question is, are AFFO and rental revenue guidance limited to the current portfolio, or do they also include future acquisitions?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

So, really, you could answer the own question because you're the one that did the model for that. But if I was answering that, our numbers that we present are based off of current annualizing first quarter numbers. I think our current number we're expecting is 121, but we know that we should beat that. I think 121 is AFFO per share annualized for '25. I think we'll end up beating that anyway, please, god. And, yes, so I think I answered their question.

Jeffrey Bajtner

Analyst

Yes. And their second question is, for new acquisitions, is the company open to issuing OP units or stock in lieu of cash?

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Oh, yes. 100%. I should add that to my regular comments to begin with. I'm glad they asked the question. We love that. We did that in a Tennessee deal. We're doing that now on this 59 million. I guess I misled who asked me? I don't know if that was Gaurav. I forgot who asked me that, but we have at least at minimum $2 million out of the $59 million as they're taking OP units, hopefully at higher than a NAV per share number. And so we're not going to dilute anybody. But, yes, we love doing that. And that's actually a value add, because we go out there and talk to people and say, hey, listen. You could defer a capital gain, especially if it's family money. Nursing home has been in the family for a couple generations, and you don't want to see a capital gain day one. You could defer the capital gain. You could put it in a trust. You could take it and pass it along to the children's trust, and you could gift it to them. And until they turn it into tradable shares, it's not a taxable event. And there's the same dividend that's paid out. Like, as you all you guys know that are on the call, it's an exchange one for one, and it's what do you call it? It's the same dividend yield, because the same dividend that's paid out to common is paid out to the OP units. So we love it. We've had a lot of interest in it, which is great. And if they would look at where we're trading at a discount to NAV, right then they have upside of the stock trading, if it traded appropriately as a multiple of the AFFO, like all the other peers, then even from NAV, there's a premium to be had on that where someone can make 10%, 20%, 30%, getting the stock at NAV versus what the market price should be. So the answer is yes to the question, a long winded yes.

Jeffrey Bajtner

Analyst

That does it from my end, and I believe that does it for questions from the analysts. So I want to thank everyone for joining us today. It's been a pleasure as always, and feel free to reach out to Moishe, myself, or Greg. We are available to answer any questions you've got about our performance or what our pipeline looks like, and we look forward to keeping in touch. And hopefully, we'll see you all soon. Have a great weekend.

Moishe Gubin

Analyst

Great weekend.

Greg Flamion

Analyst

Take care guys.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's event, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.