Mark Decker
Analyst · BMO Capital Markets
Thank you, Jamie, and good morning, everyone. I feel like a kid in a candy store this morning sitting around the table with all this talent, and I'm even more excited that we share the same simple vision to deliver value at the intersection of care, capital and real estate. I want to start by welcoming Tami Cumings, Aaron Roseth, Matthew Whitlock and Bobby Zeiller. And I'd like to thank Bob, Danica, Jamie and the rest of our team for a tremendously productive 5 months. I also want to recognize and thank Alfonzo Leon, who stepped down earlier this week as Chief Investment Officer. When we laid out our priorities earlier this year, we said we would focus on active capital allocation, portfolio repositioning and building the capabilities necessary to support our next phase of growth. Over the last several months, we've made meaningful progress on each of these objectives. Before discussing the transformation that's underway, it's important to recognize that our existing portfolio continues to perform well. During the quarter, same-store NOI increased 1.7% on a normalized basis, which is in line with our expectations and the same-store guidance we issued at the beginning of the year. The strategic actions we're taking today are not a response to operational challenges. It's about capital allocation. Outpatient medical can be an excellent investment. But as we've discussed, there are better total returns available within health care real estate. With that in mind, I'd like to discuss what we're doing to position Chiron for the future. The common thread across everything we're doing is straightforward. We're reallocating resources towards opportunities that we expect to create a more durable and relevant real estate platform that can compound stronger long-term returns. And so let's review our recent progress. We closed on the $100 million May win investment contemporaneously with the closing of our first 2 seniors communities, the Landing, a stabilized continuum of care community in Alexandria, Virginia; and the Riviera, a sister community across the courtyard from the Landing, which opened this March and is in lease-up. Together, this forms a community of 292 luxury homes. We completed the sale of 7 inpatient rehab facilities to a newly formed joint venture in June at an exit cap rate of 7.3%. This generated approximately $200 million of gross proceeds, and we retained a small equity interest in the venture. The combination of these transactions leaves us well positioned on the balance sheet side with no maturities until 2028 and less than 40% leverage. And while I know we all prefer debt to EBITDA, given the nature of our lease-up communities, we're going to refer principally to our covenant metrics for a time. The team has maintained momentum on asset sales, and I'm pleased to announce that we're under contract to sell our Beaumont, Texas Surgical Hospital for a price of $49 million, representing an exit cap rate of 5.9%. Proceeds from these sales will be directed towards assets offering a higher return on capital. The most immediate use will be to complete the previously announced acquisition of the Pinnacle, a marquee luxury community that we put under contract in the second quarter. The Pinnacle welcomed its first residents in June, and we couldn't be more pleased with the early momentum of the community. We remain active in evaluating further dispositions from our outpatient medical platform -- or outpatient medical portfolio, excuse me, including through individual sales or larger portfolio transactions and see no shortage of opportunities to redeploy these proceeds in a way that will drive our long-term return on capital higher and deliver value to our shareholders. While there's been a lot of transactional activity, the biggest story is our leadership team. Executing on a transition of this magnitude and then building the business we envision requires specialized expertise, and we've spent considerable time strengthening the organization accordingly. Over the past several weeks, we've welcomed Tami Cumings, Aaron Roseth, Matthew Whitlock and Bobby Zeiller into leadership roles at Chiron. Together, they bring more than 100 years of experience sourcing, developing, operating and managing senior housing communities. Most importantly, these additions are highly complementary. This is an operational business and to be a good partner, we need a strong operator's eyes. With Tami Cumings, our new SVP of Seniors Housing, we've added decades of operating experience to ensure that our communities are managed in a best-in-class fashion. To be a great partner with operators and deliver a consistent experience for our team in the Street, we need an organization that remains curious and focused on constant improvement. Aaron Roseth, who led a best-in-class architecture firm with industry-leading profitability, is skilled at both running large gray matter organizations and building deep client relationships. Together with Danica, who's in many ways, the heart and soul of our company, we are seeking to become the best partner we can. Matthew joins us as Chief Investment Officer with 3 decades of senior housing, thought leadership and experience on all sides of the business. He will be the tip of the spear as we seek to deploy capital wisely. Bobby is Chiron's Chief Development Officer and Head of Seniors. Bobby literally built the Bedrock communities that we purchased from Silverstone, which he led. And in addition to constructing communities, he has a great way with people and ultimately, I think his superpower is working with operators with a focus on empathy and respect as well as accountability and most importantly, an eye to what sustains a great customer experience for our residents. Together, these leaders expand our ability to identify opportunities, underwrite risk, support operators, work as an effective team and maximize performance across the portfolio. We believe Chiron now has the leadership platform necessary to deliver on our vision. Finally, I'd like to address valuation. We continue to believe the market is not fully recognizing the value embedded within our legacy outpatient medical portfolio. Our belief is supported by a growing body of public and private market transaction activity that demonstrates the robust institutional demand for outpatient medical real estate at cap rates that compare favorably to the implied valuation of our MOB portfolio. We've highlighted this on Page 14 of our most recent investor presentation. We can't control where the market values our shares in the near term. What we can control is disciplined execution. We believe that it's prudent to lean into this pricing dislocation and sell assets, which we believe will offer meaningful upside that's not currently reflected in our stock price and allow us to reallocate capital into higher returning assets. Taken together, we believe the company is better positioned today than it was 6 months ago. We have enhanced our leadership capabilities, made meaningful progress on our portfolio transition and established a clear road map for continued execution. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob to provide additional details on our financial and operating results for the quarter.