CareTrust REIT, Inc. (NYSE:CTRE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Juan Sanabria: And then just a last one for me. Any dispositions other than the Midwest Trillium assets that we should think of factoring into our models?

Dave Sedgwick: Yeah. In the sub, we list what’s held for sale right now. In addition to the 11, I think there are one more that is kind of held for sale, that is kind of coming close. Besides that, I think that’s pretty much it.

Juan Sanabria: Great. Thank you.

Bill Wagner: Thanks, Juan.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Michael Carroll with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Michael Carroll: Yeah, thanks. Dave, I was hoping you can talk about what you’re seeing on the investment side. I know you have a pretty good pipeline that you keep on highlighting. But you always highlight that there is portfolio deals that you normally will underwrite too. How active is that portfolio pipeline right now? And are there interesting deals out there, that you could complete in the next few quarters?

Dave Sedgwick: Oh, man. The problem is, I’m a terrible three-point shooter and I’m more of an assist guy. So, these bigger deals are lower probability shots for us and always have been. Although when you look at our history, the bigger years that we’ve had have been — we’ve always had to do a pretty chunky deal to get that big year done. So right now, as James said, looking at the $250 million that we’ve quoted, there really isn’t a chunky deal in there. But there are a couple that we’re evaluating. We just can’t really put a number on it or a probability on it because by sad experience, we’ve come close and missed on bigger deals in the past, and they’re just lower probability. We’d be very happy to surprise you in the future and say, we got a big one. But at this point, none of those are far enough along. We don’t have enough confidence in it to include it in our pipe.

Michael Carroll: And then, when you say you get a big one like what would you consider a portfolio deal? Is it like over $50 million, over $100 million?

Dave Sedgwick: Yeah, somewhere $75 million plus.

Michael Carroll: And then just last one for me, I mean, what about the competitive landscape? I mean, I know the levered private buyers were pretty competitive going after some of those larger deals, historically. I mean, has that changed given what’s going on with the capital markets? Are you going up against less competitors taking down and bidding on some of those portfolio transactions?

Dave Sedgwick: James?

James Callister: There’s a pretty active private equity private buyer, buyer pool out there right now, Michael, especially on the bigger stuff, that is still very active. I think that, you know you definitely have an absence of smaller owner-operators who really can’t get financing right now. That works for them and they’re really out. But I think some of the larger players are still in and still competing and makes the $100 million in north deals still really competitive because they can really execute on them. But I think you definitely see that kind of smaller buyer pool, more pronounced towards the $50 million and down kind of range.

Michael Carroll: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Bill Wagner: Thanks, Mike.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Alec Feygin with Baird. Please go ahead.

Alec Feygin: Hi, happy Friday, and thank you for taking my questions. First one is kind of on the sizable loan book. Does CareTrust has any limit to the size of how big that can be, based on any credit agreements, or is there any self-imposed limit that management would want to put on it?

Dave Sedgwick: No, there is no limits. We’ll just take it deal at a time.

Alec Feygin: Cool. Thank you. Second is, does CareTrust have — or CareTrust seems to have a large loss rent reserve at 2% to 3%. Is this a historic level, or is there anything specific about 2024?

Dave Sedgwick: Depends on what you look at. So it’s really just a function of, as we’ve said, conservatism giving guidance for the first time after a number of years. And I think as the quarters go by, you’ll see us refine that.

Alec Feygin: Last one for me. What’s the quality of the assets that are in the market right now? You kind of spoke a little bit about the portfolios and how most of the pipeline are singles or doubles. But is there any stark difference between the quality assets in the current pipeline and the portfolio deals that CareTrust reviews?

James Callister: I would say this — I would say that, if I were to generally characterize what’s coming in these days, I would say that probably 75% to 80% of it is still not cash flowing or barely cash flowing versus about 20% or so kind of stable or getting to stable. And I think that’s been — that’s probably creeping a little up in terms of the stabilized product that’s kind of coming onto the market right now. But I think that’s really the trend right now is at what stage of returning to positive cash flow? Is a seller wanting to put their buildings up for sale? Some retired and want to get out right as they turn the corner, others are waiting a little longer to get more stable. And then we’ll turn the corner. So I think you see that trend continuing a little bit.

Alec Feygin: Got it. That’s all. Thank you for the time.

Operator: Our final question comes from the line of Tayo Okusanya with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead