National Healthcare Properties, Inc. (HLTC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the First Quarter 2025 webcast for National Healthcare Properties, Inc. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. Also note that certain statements and assumptions in this webcast presentation, which are not historical facts, will be forward-looking and are being made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain assumptions and risk factors, which could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. The company refers you to its SEC filings, included in its most recent Form 10-K for a detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause these differences and impacts in its business. During today's call, the company will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitution for the financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. The company has provided a reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures as part of its first quarter 2025 investor presentation available on its website at www.nhpreit.com. You may submit questions during today's webcast by typing them in the box on the screen and a member of the company's Investor Relations team will follow up upon the conclusion of this presentation. Also, please note that a copy of this presentation and a replay of the webcast will be available on the company's website later today. I would now like to turn the call over to Michael Anderson, Chief Executive Officer and President; and Scott Lappetito, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, Michael.

Thank you for joining us today. National Healthcare Properties entered 2025 with strong momentum following a transformative 2024. The successful completion of our internalization in September 2024 marked the beginning of our evolution into an independent, internally managed REIT. With this transition behind us, we are well positioned to capitalize on the outsized long-term growth opportunities available within the health care real estate sector. Our first quarter performance reflects the solid foundation with continued growth in adjusted funds from operations, or AFFO, and same-store cash NOI, alongside meaningful progress in reducing our net debt to annual adjusted EBITDA or net leverage. Scott, will you please take us through your quarterly financial performance?

Thank you, Michael. I am happy to report significant growth in our AFFO, increasing 10.7% to $0.31 per share for the first quarter 2025 from $0.28 per share for the fourth quarter of 2024. This expansion in AFFO was driven by strong growth within our seniors housing operating properties, or SHOP, continuing the positive momentum seen through 2024. Sequential quarter same-store cash NOI for the segment grew by 13.5%, driven by increases in both occupancy and revenue per occupied room or RevPOR. This earnings increase occurred alongside continued improvement in our net leverage from 10.4x last quarter to 9.7x in the first quarter of 2025. We remain committed to further reducing leverage throughout the year through organic EBITDA growth. As of March 31, 2025, we owned 181 properties in 30 states. The portfolio consisted of 136 outpatient medical facilities or OMF and 45 shop properties with 3,939 available individual units. As mentioned earlier, our SHOP segment continued to take advantage of favorable demographic trends by growing occupancy and rental rates. On the OMF side, results were influenced by one asset, which was repositioned from a single tenant to multi-tenant within the quarter. As of today, the property has been partially relet at economics that replaced substantially all of the prior rents, resulting in upside potential when the remaining space is relet. Michael will speak more about this in a moment. The strong continued occupancy growth, rental rate growth and effective expense management in our SHOP segment, coupled with steady results in our OMF segment drove strong property-level improvements year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. Taken in conjunction with the considerable savings from eliminating our external adviser expenses last year, these translated into significant improvements in AFFO, which was 10.7% higher quarter-over-quarter and nearly 5x higher year-over-year. At the same time, we continue to improve our net leverage by producing a 0.7x decrease quarter-over-quarter, driven by continued property-level performance improvements as well as $70 million of first quarter debt paydowns through strategic dispositions at attractive cap rates. After quarter end, we continued executing on this deleveraging strategy and paid off our $21.7 million OMF warehouse facility, saving $1.4 million of annual interest expense. I would now like to turn the call back to Michael.

Thank you, Scott. Aside from many of the highlights already mentioned earlier, so far this year, we continue to make significant progress towards an eventual public listing of our common stock through improving our portfolio performance and continued deleveraging. We also continue to improve the content and clarity of our quarterly reporting to more closely align with publicly traded REITs. We expect to participate in additional investor and industry conferences in 2025, such as the June 2025 Nareit Conference to build greater exposure within the REIT investment community. Our quarterly earnings materials and future conference presentations will be posted on our website. As we have emphasized many times in the past, our enduring and fruitful partnership with our tenants is key to the long-term success of our OMF segment. We have strong relationships with the nation's leading investment-grade health care institutions and continue to grow with them as they expand their footprints all over the country. Diving into the OMF segment, we continue to execute on our operational initiatives by increasing cash NOI through strong leasing activity. As a recent example, we successfully repositioned a single-tenant property to a multi-tenant OMF after a tenant reduced its footprint in early 2025. We took advantage of the newly available leasing space and relet just a portion of the building in the second quarter of 2025 to replace substantially all of the expiring rent. The remaining space has left us with approximately 40% reletting upside at market rents that we believe are approximately 50% higher than the rates collected from our prior tenant. We also want to highlight our ability to capitalize on the value of proactive asset management. In late 2024, we identified Landis Memorial Hospital as a noncore asset, subject to a synthetic leasehold structure for a strategic disposition pipeline. After successfully completing a 15-year lease extension for this asset in the fourth quarter of 2024, we sold the asset at an attractive cap rate of 7.2% and realized an unlevered IRR of 9.2% over a 10.5-year hold period. As Scott mentioned earlier, we subsequently used a portion of cash proceeds to pay down our outstanding debt as part of our deleveraging strategy. On the SHOP segment, similar to how we manage our OMF portfolio, we believe delivering strong returns and exceptional services require strategic partnerships with the nation's leading senior housing operators. We strategically leveraged the expertise and resources of our 2 main operator partners, both of which are leading national operators, Discovery Senior Living and Senior Lifestyle, to further grow our cash NOI and drive operational efficiency. Our SHOP segment performed strongly during the first quarter of 2025 in terms of same-store cash NOI and occupancy, continuing this upward trend that we saw throughout 2024. We achieved a 13.5% increase in same-store cash NOI quarter-over-quarter and improved occupancy nearly 5% year-over-year. One of the key growth drivers for our SHOP segment is the significant rental rate growth as shown through RevPOR. RevPOR grew over 8% since March 2023, which coupled with a substantial increase in portfolio occupancy amplified our positive performance over the same period. Another key highlight is the increasing same-store cash NOI margin as we push further into the 80% plus occupancy range, with the average cost of unit terms, decreasing by nearly half. Looking at our SHOP segment as a whole, we've diligently constructed a portfolio of assets throughout the U.S. that are well positioned to take advantage of baby boomers generation's retirement and the expected increase in demand for need-based senior housing in a tight supply market for years to come. Take our Addington place of Des Moines facility as an example. It is strategically located in a region with a growing number of retirees and limited supply of senior housing communities, which has driven a significant increase in occupancy and NOI at this facility. As previously announced, we are evaluating the composition of our portfolio to ensure ongoing alignment with our investment strategy within both of our operating segments. Year-to-date, we have closed on the sale of 16 noncore properties for an aggregate total sales price of $177.5 million. Our current disposition pipeline includes an additional 5 assets representing an expected aggregate total sales price of $24 million, which would bring the total volume to more than $200 million year-to-date if completed on the anticipated terms. Scott, will you please take us through our capitalization highlights?

Thank you, Michael. We continue to actively manage our balance sheet and capital structure. As of March 31, 2025, we had $1.1 billion of total debt outstanding and our net debt to gross asset value was 44.6%. Our debt is comprised of $721 million of secured mortgages, $339 million that is drawn on our Fannie Mae master credit facilities and $22 million on the Capital One OMF warehouse facility, which we fully repaid in April 2025 using partial proceeds from the sale of Landis Memorial Hospital as part of our deleveraging strategy. All of our debt is fixed rate, inclusive of our hedging instruments at a weighted average economic interest rate of 5.1% at March 31, 2025. Lastly, I will close with an update on our upcoming late 2026 debt maturities. We are proactively evaluating refinancing options well ahead of the scheduled maturities, including reviewing options for a roughly $450 million of unencumbered assets with our lenders. I would now like to turn the call back to Michael.

Thank you, Scott. We believe we have the right team in place to execute our strategy to drive long-term value. Scott and I have been with NHP since its beginning and are very excited to lead NHP into its new chapter as an internally managed REIT. Our executive team includes: Trent Taylor, who leads our OMF segment and real estate transactions; Lindsay Gordon, who leads our dedicated SHOP team; Boris Korotkin, who leads our capital market strategies; and our latest addition, Michael Farinawicz from Healthpeak and Physicians Realty, who will focus on capital market transactions and lead our Investor Relations function. We also have a strong Board of Directors consisting of seasoned executives with extensive experience in health care, real estate, marketing, government services and public company management. We are pleased with the ongoing improvement in the performance of our portfolio, with strong starts to the year. The significant increase in AFFO and same-store cash NOI and occupancy in the SHOP segment this quarter extends the momentum that we have seen in this portfolio. At the same time, our OMF portfolio continued its [ stupendable ] performance while maintaining strong leasing activities. Our Board will continue to consider a potential listing or another liquidity event for NHP and its shareholders. We will keep you updated with these and other additional exciting developments for NHP. Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you. This concludes our conference call. Thank you for joining us today. You may now disconnect.