The Pennant Group, Inc.

Welcome to the Pennant Group fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Kirk Cheney. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Marvin. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Here with me today, I have Brent Garasoli, our CEO, John Gochner, our president and COO, and Lynette Waltham, our CFO. Before we begin, I have a few housekeeping matters. We filed our earnings press release in 10-K yesterday. This announcement is available on the investor relations section of our website at www.pennantgroup.com. A replay of this call will also be available on our website until 5 p.m. Mountain Time on February 28, 2026. We want to remind anyone who may be listening to a replay of this call that all statements made are as of today, February 28, 2025, and these statements will not be updated after today's call. Also, any forward-looking statements made today are based on management's current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs about our business and the environment in which we operate. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied on today's call. Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review our SEC filings for a more complete discussion of factors that could impact our results. Acceptance required by Federal Securities Law's tenant and its affiliates do not undertake to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements where changes arise from new information, future events, changing circumstances, or for any other reason. In addition, the Pennant Group, Inc. is a holding company with no direct operating assets, employees, or revenues. Certain of our independent subsidiaries, collectively referred to as the Service Center, provide administrative support services to the other operating subsidiaries through contractual relationships with such subsidiaries. The words Pennant, Company, We, Our, and Us refer to the Pennant Group, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries. All of our operating subsidiaries and the service center are operated by separate independent companies that have their own management, employees, and assets. References herein to the consolidated company and its assets and activities, as well as the use of the terms we, us, our, and similar terms do not imply that any of the subsidiaries are operated directly by the tenant group. Also, we supplement our GAAP reporting with non-GAAP metrics. When viewed together with our GAAP results, we believe that these measures can provide a more complete understanding of our business, but they should not be relied upon to the exclusion of GAAP reports. A GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation is available in yesterday's press release and is available in our 10-K. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Brent Garasoli, our CEO. Brent?

Thanks, Kirk, and welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. This has been a remarkable year for Pennant, thanks to the dedication, of our local leaders and teams who care for our patients and residents each day. We are so grateful for everything you do to provide life-changing service. We are pleased to announce strong fourth quarter results to conclude a year of record-breaking performance. Our Q4 adjusted earnings per share of 24 cents contribute to full year 2024 adjusted earnings per share of 94 cents, which exceeds our updated earnings guidance midpoint of 93 cents. As a reminder, We raised guidance twice during 2024. Our full year consolidated results include revenue of $695.2 million, an increase of $150.3 million or 27.6% over the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA of $53.3 million, an improvement of $12.6 million or 30.9% over the prior year. 2024 was an eventful year for Pennant. We launched transformative partnerships, including a joint venture with John Muir Health in the Bay Area, which has now successfully transitioned and contributing positively to our results, and a management agreement with Hartford Healthcare in Connecticut, which we view as a foundational relationship for future expansion in the Eastern United States. We completed numerous strategic home health and hospice acquisitions, including the $80 million purchase Signature Healthcare at Home, a large provider of home health and hospice services in the Pacific Northwest. We also made opportunistic senior living acquisitions and added attractive real estate assets to our portfolio. We strengthened our capital structure to enable additional growth by upsizing our credit facility and completing a follow-on equity offering. Through all of this, we significantly expanded our same-store operations and continued to add key individuals who will lead us to new heights in the future. Throughout 2024, we remained focused on five key initiatives, leadership development, employee experience, clinical excellence, margin, and growth. We've effectively made progress in each of these areas during the year. The most important initiative continues to be leadership development, which ultimately drives performance in the other four areas. As a leadership company, we believe that attracting and developing talented leaders is paramount for growth and success. For this reason, we continue to invest meaningfully in our leadership development programs. Notably, in 2024, we added 66 leaders to our CEO and training program and launched a clinical leadership training program that included 40 participants. We were not only successful in recruiting and developing new leaders, but also in the continued development of existing local leaders who achieved record numbers of C-level designations in the year. In total, 45 local leaders earned C-level designations in their operations, including 18 local CEOs. As we've explained before, CEOs and other C-level leaders earn this designation by behaving as true owners and creating financial, clinical, and cultural value. In the process, they typically generate higher annual earnings than our non-CEO executive directors, along with better clinical and cultural outcomes. Following a monumental year, we are excited about the significant progress we've made and expect to build upon it throughout 2025. We are also focused on quickly and effectively transitioning newly acquired operations and have the bench strength, capital, and deal flow to support substantial acquisitional growth. continue to entertain numerous potential opportunities across our existing markets and beyond. Turning to 2025 guidance, as we announced in our press release yesterday, we are providing guidance for the full year. We anticipate full year revenue in the range of $800 million to $865 million and adjusted earnings per share in the range of $1.03 to $1.11. The midpoint of $1.07 represents 13.8% growth on our 2024 adjusted earnings and 46.6% growth over our 2023 results. Our 2025 guidance is based on the compelling momentum in both our segments, the readiness of our local leaders to drive organic and inorganic growth, and the significant upside we expect to continue to unlock in our existing operations. The guidance is annual, not quarterly, and it reflects an anticipated ramp throughout the year, particularly as we transition a significant number of recently acquired operations. With that, I'll turn the call over to John to provide more detail on our fourth quarter operational results.