Sonida Senior Living, Inc. (NYSE:SNDA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

All of this will result in nearly $40 million of cash savings over the revised maturity dates. As a reminder, 2 other significant components were completed in connection with this debt restructure. Ally Bank granted a 1-year waiver of its minimum liquidity test with a phased-in liquidity minimum restored by December 2024. And on the equity front, our largest individual shareholder, Conversant Capital, provided an equity commitment of $13.5 million to further bolster operating liquidity. This additional access to equity provides an important bridge for the company as its all-in run rate cash burn has quickly reduced to levels that support near-term cash flow generation. Just as is important, the availability of equity allows the company to settle its nonrecurring liabilities, the most significant of which are 2 required $5 million principal payments on the Fannie Mae loans, one that was paid on the date of the forbearance this year and one that is due in June 2024.

Again, I want to thank Fannie Mae, Ally Bank and Conversant for their collaborative roles in this holistic and successful process, which addresses more than 80% of the company’s mortgage debt. Moving to Slide 8, where I will quickly hit on a few important trends. On our 2 previous quarterly earnings calls, we’ve discussed the company’s programmatic approach to push rental rates to levels that reflect the increased cost to care for our residents and provide enhanced engagement activities. Today, we are pleased to report a meaningful 100 basis point jump in our third quarter average occupancy to 84.9%. We’re even further encouraged by what we achieved in the last month of the quarter with same-store average occupancy settling north of 85% and spot occupancy on the last day of the quarter at 86.9%, as seen on Slide 9.

These new levels of census are particularly meaningful heading into 2024 as we continue to be successful in increasing average rental rates at the same time. From Q2 to Q3, RevPOR and RevPAR increased 13% and 18% on an annualized basis, respectively. We believe this accretive mix of increased occupancy and rate was only attainable because of the continued excellence and stability and our community leadership teams. Their dedication and ability to deliver on resident satisfaction and still confident that the company can drive further top line performance. Using the same quarter-over-quarter comparison, the company’s NOI of $14.7 million reflected a margin increase of 100 basis points to 24.9% and represents $59 million of annualized run rate NOI.

In comparison to Q3 2022. NOI increased $4.7 million and NOI margin increased nearly 600 basis points on an absolute basis from its 2022 low watermark of 19%. On an adjusted basis, excluding nonrecurring state grants, this year-over-year adjusted NOI margin increase — still exceeded 5%. In a few slides, I will walk through the underlying operating expense trends, which should continue to support margin expansion. Moving ahead to Slide 10. I will detail some of the positive sustained trends on our rate profile. We realized another strong quarter of rent renewals, which yielded a 9% increase on a year-over-year basis. The in-place lease rate success is complemented by a re-leasing spread increase of 2% for the quarter, which already contemplates an elevated average rate in its base.

During the quarter, we saw the composition of Medicaid revenues as a percentage of total revenues increased from 9% to 11%. This mix shift is a direct result of substantial Medicaid rate increases recently passed through legislation that came online during the quarter. Specifically in Indiana, 8 owned communities qualified for the Indiana health coverage programs recent rate increase based on the level of care and acuity services being provided by our community teams. Finally, with 97% of our residents having been formally reassessed and rerated to reflect the care services currently provided, we are now approaching a higher stabilized base for this ancillary revenue stream. This 2023 level of care initiative has contributed an additional $2 million to our annual run rate revenue base.

Diving into more of the margin drivers, we will move ahead to Slide 11 to discuss recent labor trends. We are extremely pleased that in this tight labor market and hyperinflationary period, we’ve been able to control our labor costs. With another quarter behind us, we are seeing further stabilization of our labor base. For the first 2 quarters of the year, labor as a percentage of revenue pushed down from its 2022 average of 48% to 46%. In the third quarter, this percentage was 46.4%, which included an extra calendar day as compared to Q2 as well as the onetime bonus payout in connection with the company’s summer sales rally. Excluding the impact from these items yields a sub 46% labor to revenue comparison. Finally, contract labor continues to be limited to a handful of communities where market-specific labor constraints persist.

Moving ahead to all other expenses on Slide 12, our nonlabor expenses have remained flat over the last 15 months. Despite the headwinds of elevated inflation over the same period and an occupancy increase of 150 basis points. As a percentage of revenue, year-to-date nonlabor expense decreased 200 basis points from the same 9-month period in 2022. Continued steadying of both labor and nonlabor costs should yield even more opportunities to drive margin expansion due to reduced incremental expenses required to support additional occupancy beyond the company’s already healthy base level. Moving ahead to the final slide of our deck, I want to walk through a few debt updates beyond the holistic modification described earlier in the presentation. In the third quarter, 2 loans securing 3 communities within the Protective Life portfolio were sold to 2 third-party lenders.