LTC Properties, Inc. (NYSE:LTC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Clint Malin: Hi Connor. Good morning. It’s Clint. The feedback we are getting from operators speaking to about this. It’s in the comment period right now. There has been a lot of comments that have been submitted and Arca [ph] is doing a good job of organizing that. Generally speaking, I think the consensus is that the impact is not in, obviously, ‘23 or ‘24 or ‘25 and really working with CMS, how to phase that in. So, that’s really where the focus is right now. So, as you look into 2024, generally speaking, people aren’t concerned about that, but it’s just trying to shape what it looks like and how it’s phased in beyond that timeframe.

Connor Siversky: Okay. Understood. And then transaction activity expectations for next year, I mean we have seen the 10-year more than double and yet in ALS and sale of assets, it seems yields have only gone up maybe 100 basis points to 150 basis points in certain cases. Do you have any idea what’s driving that kind of stickiness on pricing, whether that’s just the transaction activity and that is paying attention to those assets?

Clint Malin: I think it’s just a lower transaction volume. And then we see going forward, with that rise in rates, and you haven’t seen the adjustments yet in the cap rates with mortgages coming due, as I talked about in the prepared remarks, I mean we see an evolving market with opportunity in front of us and we think that REITs would be well positioned to take advantage and capitalizing on deploying additional capital.

Connor Siversky: Got it. Thank you.

Clint Malin: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question for today is coming from Michael Carroll with RBC Capital Markets.

Michael Carroll: Thanks. And I am not sure if everybody else is here in that, but I am getting some feedback on the line two? Anyway, I guess my first – my first question is on Prestige. Clint, can you just kind of give us some ideas of what’s going on with the Michigan Medicaid true-up payments. I mean how much additional capital is receipts going to get in the fourth quarter of ‘23. And why wasn’t that capital used to pay back the deferral?

Clint Malin: So, on last call, we – you and I had a conversation in Q&A regarding this. So last quarter, like I had mentioned that the estimates of the time was the procedure received $7 million in – or estimated to be $7 million in ‘23 million and then the $8 million to $10 million range in ‘24. At this point, right now that the rate letters have been issued that estimate is approximately $8 million for 2023, and we are at the higher end of the range of $10 million in 2024. Given the deferral in these rates over the last 3 years, there will be – there is AP, there is bed taxes that need to be paid for Prestige. So, this basically this initial payment allows them to bring the AP back into current terms, pay the deferred bed tax. And on the call last time, I had mentioned you shouldn’t assume those dollars in 2023 would come to LTC.

Michael Carroll: Okay. And then as you are thinking about into the operations of Prestige going into 2024, are there operating trends improving? And I believe you might have answered this with Juan’s question, but do you expect that they are not going to pay the full contractual rent in 2024?

Clint Malin: No, we fully expect – as Pam just detailed, we fully expect and as Pam mentioned, to Juan’s comment to model FAD cash rent from – or cash interest from Prestige, the same as FFO. So, we fully expect to receive the contractual interest payment, not only in ‘23, but in ‘24 in our prepared remarks, we said 2025 as well.

Michael Carroll: Okay. And then why did you change it to allow them to pay less, I guess what was the reasoning behind that?