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Text: These materials are available on the Ventas website at ir.
Let me start by saying that we believe the macro environment and the Ventas outlook have turned an important corner and that the worst of the pandemic is behind us.
You have no idea how good it feels to say those words, even though we recognize that significant uncertainty remains.
The whole Ventas team is actively engaged in taking steps to win the recovery for our stakeholders.
These steps include making smart portfolio and capital allocation decisions, capturing the embedded upside in our high-quality senior housing portfolio, focusing on operational excellence and initiatives, investing in value-creating development and acquisition opportunities across our demographically driven asset classes, attracting diverse, attractive capital, and maintaining financial strength and flexibility.
I also think it's important to reiterate our gratitude and optimism.
The widespread administration and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines have dramatically benefited the health and wellbeing of our senior residents and their caregivers, and also laid the foundation for sustained economic recovery.
Let me first address senior housing trends and results.
With respect to health and safety, I'm thrilled to report that our confirmed new resident cases in SHOP have fallen to literally a single person per day out of a resident population of 40,000.
And all our communities are now open to new move-ins and most have reintroduced expanded visitation and communal activities.
As a result, the natural, resilient and demographically based demand for senior living has revised, and we've reached the cyclical pandemic occupancy bottom in our SHOP portfolio in mid-March.
Since then, led by our U.S. SHOP community, which posted 280 basis points of growth, we grew SHOP spot occupancy 190 basis points through April 30th to nearly 78%.
Our Canadian SHOP portfolio, which has maintained occupancy of over 91%, tempered the full SHOP occupancy growth because Canadian clinical conditions and regulatory measures are currently lagging those in the U.S.
We do expect those to catch up over time.
Notably, for the whole portfolio, March and April were the first two consecutive months when SHOP move-ins exceeded both, pre-pandemic move-in levels and move-outs since the start of the pandemic.
In fact, move-ins during April at 1,880 totaled more move-ins in a single month than we've experienced at any time since June 2019.
While many of these positive trends began in the first quarter and therefore did not fully benefit first quarter results, we are also pleased with those results.
Our first quarter normalized FFO per share and SHOP performance came in ahead of our expectations.
And our SHOP occupancy gains were at or above those reported by other market participants to date.
The resilient and robust demand we are seeing for senior housing once again validates the need-based nature of our communities and the crucial role care providers play in facilitating longer, healthier lives for this portion of the nation's population, which is set to grow by over 2 million individuals over just the next few years.
Supply trends in senior housing are also highly favorable.
This combination of growing demographic demand and constrained supply creates a favorable backdrop for senior housing recovery, which represents an incredibly significant value-creation opportunity for our shareholders.
The high quality of our senior housing portfolio, as Justin will describe, makes us well-positioned to recapture NOI and realize this upside.
Turning to our capital allocation approach, we are confident of our ability to recycle about $1 billion through property dispositions in the second half of this year, and those are expected to enhance our enterprise.
On the investment side, our attractive life science, research and innovation business continues to provide us with value-creating opportunities to invest capital.
The Ventas portfolio, which now exceeds 9 million square feet, is located in three of the top five cluster markets and is affiliated with over 15 of the nation's top research universities.
We are also investing in our active and just delivered ground-up developments in life science, research and innovation, which totaled nearly $1 billion in project costs.
And I'm pleased to report that we also have another $1 billion in potential projects affiliated with major universities, right behind the four developments currently under way.
We look forward to sharing more information on our exciting development pipeline with you, later this year.
We recently expanded our life sciences business through our investment in a Class A portfolio of life science assets anchored by Johns Hopkins Medical, which we purchased at an attractive valuation of $600 per square foot.
Located in the fourth largest life science cluster in the U.S., Hopkins is a global leader in research and medicine and the number one recipient of government research funding.
This acquisition leverages our unique expertise at the intersection of universities, life sciences and academic medicine.
In addition, we continue to invest capital in senior housing with our partner, Le Groupe Maurice in Quebec.
LGM maintains a first-class brand, product and financial model for success.
Our two most recently completed high-end communities with LGM opened in the fourth quarter and have already achieved 87% occupancy.
We have three additional developments under way with LGM, representing nearly $300 million in aggregate project costs.
Looking at the broader investment market, deal volume is again trending toward normalized levels.
In a typical year, our deal team reviews over $30 billion in investment opportunities.
Our pipeline of potential investments across our asset classes is active and growing, and we are on our front foot from an external growth standpoint.
We have access to significant liquidity and a wide array of capital sources to fund deals.
Our investment philosophy continues to be focused on growing reliable cash flow and favorable risk-adjusted return, taking into account factors such as market position and trajectory of the asset and business, cost per square footer unit, downside protection and ultimate potential for cash flow growth and asset appreciation.
In closing, we believe we've turned an important corner.
And key metrics in our business are showing meaningful improvement.
The positive investment thesis for all of our demographically driven asset classes and for Ventas is pointing firmly positive.
As a team at Ventas, we're really happy about the strength and stability we've shown and the recent upswing in economic, clinical and operating environment.
We have an abiding commitment to win the recovery for all our stakeholders, and we are confident we're taking the right steps to do so.
I am very excited that senior housing recovery is under way.
As we've mentioned before, the lifestyle offering in our communities will be a leading indicator of performance.
Now that vaccines have been executed, activities are picking up again, communal dining is coming back and all of our communities are open to visitation from relatives, the underlying demand for our services should continue to strengthen.
As we have visited communities recently, the enthusiasm expressed by residents, their relatives and employees is compelling as communities are literally coming back to life again.
As Debbie noted, we are pleased with the improvement in leading indicators in occupancy as our move-in and move-out performance in March and April resulted in 266 and 363 net move-ins, respectively.
We expect occupancy improvements benefiting from a return to 2019 move-in levels, while at the same time, move-outs to be lower than 2019 levels due to lower current occupancy levels.
If we use the move-out rate as a percentage of the resident population from 2019 and apply that percentage to the current lower resident occupancy, the outcome is lower move-outs than pre-pandemic levels.
That, in combination with a 2019 move-in run rate, results in projected net positive occupancy gains.
I refer to this as the "turn the lights on" scenario, where we simply get the structural benefit from this netting effect.
Having said that, March and April, both performed well above this baseline, as we started to see a resurgence of high-converting lead sources, which include respites and personal referrals.
As these lead sources and professional referrals continue to recover, we could see move-in rates grow.
Moving on to macro drivers.
We remain optimistic on our long-term supply and demand outlook.
Construction starts continued to decelerate in the first quarter to the lowest level since the first quarter of 2011, and were down 77% from the peak in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Fewer starts should translate into materially lower deliveries in 2022 and 2023.
In addition, we expect strong demographic tailwinds to provide support for occupancy growth.
The 80-plus population is expected to grow 17% over the next five years, more than double the rate witnessed during the five-year recovery following the financial crisis.
I'll comment on our SHOP portfolio.
When I joined Ventas just over a year ago, one of my first priorities was to assess the overall quality of our portfolio.
Now that we are traveling again and visiting communities, I'm pleased to verify we benefit from a well-invested, highly diversified portfolio of market-leading senior housing communities with service offerings that range from an active adult, independent living, social assisted living, and assisted living and memory care.
We are well located in high-barrier markets that have substantial income and wealth demographics to support our offering.
Our three primary operators, Le Groupe Maurice, Sunrise and Atria, are each uniquely positioned to be competitive within their respective markets.
Collectively, they account for 90% of our SHOP NOI on a stabilized basis.
With these attributes of a high-quality portfolio in mind, moving forward, we are actively reviewing opportunities to optimize our portfolio through pruning, strategic capex investment, transitioning communities, new developments and pursuing new acquisitions to maintain our strong market position in senior housing.
Moving on to triple-net senior housing.
Given the proactive measures taken last year where we addressed a substantial portion of our portfolio and additionally paired with government subsidies and other tenant resources, our tenants continue to pay, as expected, in the first quarter and through April.
Ventas received all of its expected triple-net senior housing cash rent.
Our trailing 12 cash flow coverage for senior housing, which is reported one quarter in arrears, is 1.3 times and stable versus the prior quarter.
I'll summarize by expressing our enthusiasm around our strong leading indicators, high-quality portfolio of communities and operators.
I have a high confidence in our ability to compete in what should be a very exciting period of recovery for the senior housing sector.
With that, I'll hand the call to Pete.
I'll cover the office and healthcare triple-net segments.
Together, these segments represent over 50% of Ventas' NOI.
They continue to produce solid and reliable results.
First, I'll cover office.
The core office portfolio, ex parking, performed well.
Core office grew 1.7% year-on-year and 1.1% sequentially.
Those results were tempered by lower parking activity, which I'm pleased to say is materially increasing.
All-in, the office portfolio delivered $123 million of same-store cash NOI in the first quarter.
This represents an 80 basis-point reported sequential growth.
In terms of rent collections, our strong record continued during the quarter and into April.
This outstanding record is enabled by the mission-critical nature of our portfolio and our high-quality creditworthy tenancy.
In our medical office portfolio, 88% of our NOI comes from investment-grade rated tenants and HCA.
In our life sciences portfolio, 76% of our revenues come directly from investment-grade rated organizations and publicly traded companies.
All of our MOB properties are in elective surgery restriction-free locations and clinical activity and building utilization is rebounding.
A clinical rebound provides confidence to healthcare executives in making business decisions.
We're certainly seeing that on the real estate side.
As an example, we are finishing negotiations on a 10-year 160,000 square foot renewal with a 16,000 square foot expansion with a leading health system in the southeast.
We relocated and extended several hospital offices on a Midwestern campus to accommodate the addition of a 50,000 square foot healthcare-focused technical college.
The leases will commence in July, a win for the health system, the college and Ventas.
Medical office had record level retention of 91% for the first quarter and 86% for the trailing 12 months.
Driven by this retention, total office leasing was nearly 1 million square feet for the quarter.
This includes 160,000 square feet of new leasing.
The result is that MOB occupancy stayed essentially flat, down only 10 basis points for the quarter, both sequentially and year-on-year.
Previous actions to bolster leasing are clearly showing results.
In 2019, we hired a head of leasing.
In 2020, we hired a digital marketing lead.
In 2020, we redeployed 30% of our third-party brokers.
And in 2020, we increased the number of third-party brokers by 70% to impact the local coverage.
Our digital marketing program focused on local market awareness and virtual touring of vacant suites is fully in place and making a difference.
Average length of term for new leases was 7.3 years, 5 months higher than the 2019 average.
Renewal term length also exceeded 2019 averages.
Average escalators for new leasing was 2.7%, higher than our average in-place escalator of 2.4%.
All of this represents growing healthcare community confidence in the recovery.
I'd also like to highlight our pre-leasing construction initiative.
This is where we take a vacant suite where it is difficult to visualize this future potential and either demolish the in-place improvements to Core and Shell or complete a hospital standard physician suite in advance of leasing.
We've invested over $2 million in a pilot across 20 suites.
The results have been fantastic.
These projects have driven 20 basis points of occupancy and created a nearly 20% return on investment.
Because of these results, we intend to expand this program later this year.
We remain enthusiastic about the office business and particularly investment opportunities in the R&I space.
We continue to make progress on our recently announced $2 billion pipeline of development opportunities with Wexford.
We've publicly announced four projects in that pipeline, Arizona State University in Phoenix, which opened in the fourth quarter and is soon to be over 70% leased.
Drexel University College of Nursing in Philadelphia is 100% leased.
The project, in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh for immunotherapy is 70% preleased.
And our new development in the thriving City submarket of Philadelphia between Penn and Drexel is showing strong pre-leasing activity.
Since the acquisition of our South San Francisco life science trophy asset, we have renewed several tenants and have driven occupancy to 100%.
In some cases, the mark-to-market has exceeded 30%.
At our newest life sciences acquisition on the Johns Hopkins Campus in Baltimore, we are in lease negotiations to take the buildings from 96% to 100% occupancy.
Demand far exceeds our current capacity.
Now, let's turn to healthcare triple net.
During the first quarter, our healthcare triple-net assets showed continued strength and reliability with 100% rent collections in April and May.
Trailing 12-month EBITDARM cash flow coverage through 12/31 improved sequentially for all of our healthcare triple-net asset classes.
Acute care hospitals' trailing 12-month coverage was a strong 3.5 times in the fourth quarter, a 20 basis-point sequential improvement.
Ardent has performed extremely well in this dynamic market.
IRF and LTAC coverage improved 10 basis points to 1.7 times in the first quarter, buoyed by strong business results and government funding.
Census levels were high at year-end and continued into the first quarter.
During this period, Kindred has been able to demonstrate their expertise in treating complex respiratory disorders to their health system partners.
Regarding our loan portfolio, it is fully current.
They are our heroes.
We are relieved that now, protected by the vaccine, they can do their jobs with peace of mind and in safety.
In my remarks today, I'll cover our first quarter results, our expectations for the second quarter of 2021 and our recent liquidity, balance sheet and capital activities.
Let's start with our results in the first quarter.
Ventas reported first quarter net income of minus $0.15 per share, driven by noncash charges in the quarter as we transferred assets to held for sale.
Normalized funds from operations in the first quarter was $0.72 per share, a $0.01 beat versus the high end of our prior guidance range of $0.66 to $0.71.
As previously communicated and included in our Q1 guidance range, we received $0.04 in HHS Grants in SHOP in Q1.
Adjusted for these grants, Q1 FFO per share was $0.68.
As expected, office and triple-net contributed stable sequential NOI performance in the first quarter.
Q1 outperformance was driven by better occupancy and lower-than-expected operating expenses in SHOP.
As a result, same-store SHOP NOI declined sequentially by 8% in the second quarter versus the first.
Turning to our Q2 guidance.
Second quarter net income is estimated to range from flat to $0.07 per fully diluted share.
Our guidance range for normalized FFO for Q2 is $0.67 to $0.71 per share.
The Q2 FFO midpoint of $0.69 is $0.01 higher sequentially than the first quarter results due to an improving SHOP trajectory, after adjusting for HHS Grants in both periods.
Key second quarter assumptions underlying our guidance are as follows.
Q2 spot occupancy from March 31st to June 30th is forecast to increase between 150 to 250 basis points, with the midpoint assuming the occupancy improvement in March and April, continues through May and June.
Sequential SHOP revenue is expected to grow modestly as a result of occupancy gains.
While operating expenses, excluding HHS grants, are forecast to be flat with lower COVID costs, offsetting higher costs due to increased occupancy, higher community activity levels and an additional day in the second quarter.
Finally, we've not included the receipts of HHS Grants in SHOP in our Q2 guidance.
In our Office and Triple-net segments, we expect stable NOI in Q2 relative to Q1.
And finally, we continue to assume $1 billion in proceeds from property dispositions in the back half of 2021.
I'd like to underscore that we're still in a highly uncertain environment.
Though trends in SHOP are positive, the pandemic's impact on our business remain very difficult to predict.
We continue to enjoy robust liquidity with $2.7 billion as of May 5th.
Notably, in the first quarter, we renewed our revolver at better pricing and improved our near-term maturity profile by fully repaying $400 million of senior notes due 2023.
In terms of capital structure, we maintained total debt to gross asset value at 37% in the first quarter.
Q1 net debt-to-EBITDA was 7.1 times, as EBITDA continued to feel the impacts of COVID in the quarter.
We expect net debt-to-EBITDA will reach its peak in the first half of '21 and then begin to improve in the second half as senior housing rebounds and we reduce debt with asset sales.
On behalf of all my colleagues, Ventas is committed to continuing to take the actions to win the post-pandemic recovery, which finally is appearing in our sights.
Before we start with Q&A, we're limiting each caller to two questions to be respectful to everyone on the line.

user
compname reports sees q2 adjusted ffo per share $0.69 excluding items.
sees q2 adjusted ffo per share $0.69 excluding items.
qtrly normalized ffo per share $0.72.
qtrly nareit ffo per share $0.67.
sees q2 normalized ffo per share $0.67 - $0.71.
sees q2 nareit ffo per share $0.67 - $0.70.

assistant