CareTrust REIT, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to Care Trust REIT's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Lauren Beal, Care Trust Senior Vice President and Controller. Please go ahead, Ms. Beal.

Thank you and welcome to CareTrust REIT's third quarter 2022 earnings call. Participants should be aware that this call is being recorded and listeners are advised that any forward-looking statements made on today's call are based on management's current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs about CareTrust's business and the environment in which it operates. These statements may include projections regarding future financial performance, dividends, acquisitions, investments, returns, financings, and other matters, and may or may not reference other matters affecting the company's business or the businesses of its tenants, including factors that are beyond their control, such as natural disasters, pandemics, such as COVID-19, and governmental actions. The company's statements today and its business generally are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied herein. Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review Care Trust SEC filings for a more complete discussion of factors that could impact results, as well as any financial or other statistical information required by SEC Regulation G. Except as required by law, Care Trust REIT and its affiliates do not undertake to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements where changes arise as a result of new information, future events, changing circumstances, or for any other reason. During the call, the company will reference non-GAAP metrics such as EBITDA, FFO, and FAD, or FAD, and normalized EBITDA, FFO, and FAD. When viewed together with GAAP results, the company believes these measures can provide a more complete understanding of its business, but cautions that they should not be relied upon to the exclusion of GAAP reports. Yesterday, CareTrust filed its Form 10-Q, an accompanying press release, and its quarterly financial supplements. each of which can be accessed on the investor relations section of CareTrust's website at www.caretrustreit.com. A replay of this call will also be available on the website for a limited period. On the call this morning are Dave Sedgwick, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Lamb, Chief Investment Officer, James Collister, Executive Vice President, and myself, Lauren Beals. I will now turn the call over to Dave Sedgwick, CareTrust REIT's President and CEO. Dave?

Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. First, we'd like to excuse our CFO, Bill Wagner, from today's call. Bill's brother very recently passed away, and Bill is spending time with family this week. And on behalf of Bill, we'd like to thank you for the many condolences and concern that has been expressed. We love Bill and pray for him and his family during this time. Now, if I can shift gears, Zooming out a bit to look at the big picture, today's broader economic conditions bring both opportunities and challenges for our business. Historically, healthcare has been a hedge against recessionary pressures as demand for services is unaffected, while tight labor markets tend to loosen. Drilling down further to our market, highly levered buyers have been very active in our space for several years. And the tight debt market today has caused difficulties for those buyers and therefore slowed some of our pending dispositions. But the flip side is that the rising rates are clearly tipping the scales in our favor on the acquisitions front. We expect to continue to see an uptick in deals across our desk in the coming months. In October, we hosted our Operator Conference, wherein we collectively addressed topics like overcoming the tight labor market, purchasing, reimbursement, the administration's policy proposals, and more. We came away from that conference energized and cautiously optimistic about returning to growth in 2023 with who we believe are among the most elite operators in the sector. Each operator is unique. Most are eager to grow with us, while some are still very much finding their footing as they continue to manage through historically tough operating conditions. We're deeply grateful for each of them and their tireless work to improve the lives of their staff, residents, patients, and the communities they serve. We're also encouraged by the overall portfolio strength as we head into a new year that will likely see the eventual termination of the public health emergency. In our supplemental, we are reporting lease coverage on an adjusted basis, excluding assets held for sale. That coverage through June is just north of two times for EBITDAR and 2.58 times for EBITDARM. We collected 93.4 percent of rents inclusive of deposits applied in the quarter, 92.5 percent excluding those deposits. And more currently, in October, we collected 95.6 percent inclusive of deposits applied and 92.7 exclusive of deposits. I'll conclude by acknowledging the great work done by the team here to close on the sale of the TRIO skilled nursing portfolio in the face of several headwinds. Getting that deal across the finish line in September was a top priority for the company, and our team did a great job. Even after 30 months of the pandemic, this year's bear market and repositioning work, we have produced a five-year total shareholder return of 22.2% through Q3. As we conclude the portfolio optimization work in the coming months, we will be poised to take advantage of increasing opportunities to grow as you've become accustomed to with Care Trust. With that, I'll turn it over to James to update you on the portfolio and the quarter. Thanks, Dave.

As Dave mentioned, we were very pleased to have closed during the quarter on the sale of seven facilities in Ohio at a purchase price of $52 million. The sale included six skilled nursing facilities and one multi-service campus, totaling approximately 600 skilled nursing beds and 100 seniors housing units. As we sit here today, we have several dispositions progressing towards closing with target closing dates in the next couple of months. The majority of properties currently classified as held for sale are under signed purchase agreements and in various stages of due diligence with the buyers. We are pursuing parallel paths of selling or re-tenanting several of the other properties held for sale. As we weigh the alternatives for these properties, the common objective remains the same, to de-risk the portfolio moving forward and efficiently allocate capital for the long term. Outside of the assets held for sale, we have entered into leases to reposition two of the seniors housing facilities to behavioral health and are entering into a lease to re-tenant two other seniors housing facilities with a tenant that is a new relationship for us. While we had expected to complete most of the dispositions by year-end, the dramatically altered debt market has impacted many of our buyers. As interest rates have risen, we've seen many lenders continuing their move to the sidelines as they consider industry headwinds and a looming recession. With lenders withdrawing, the process for selling to leveraged buyers has slowed significantly. Nevertheless, we continue to see legitimate interest in our proposed dispositions, and we will continue to provide updates to you as deals further solidify and progress. Also, for the portfolio in Q3, we closed two real estate secured portfolio loans. In August, we closed on a $22.3 million B-piece loan secured by five California skilled nursing facilities. The loan is a SOFR-based rate with a floor of 8.5%. And in September, We provided a $24.9 million BP loan secured by four Georgia skilled nursing facilities. The loan is fixed to us at a 9% rate. Those recent transactions bring our 2022 year-to-date investment total to just under $170 million at an average yield of approximately 9%. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to address the pipeline.

Thanks, James, and good morning, everyone. Looking to the market, we see increased interest rates particularly from bridge lenders who are widening their spreads while tightening their underwriting standards, specifically increased debt yields and lower LTV and LTC ratios, which we believe these changes have been the drivers of an uptick in deal flow for us. Brokers and investment sales professionals are now commonly advising sellers to take certainty of close over maximizing sales proceeds, giving an advantage back to the well-capitalized buyers like us who do not depend on bank or debt fund financing to close transactions. We are seeing more actionable acquisition opportunities in markets that we and our operators are looking to grow in. Unfortunately, yet predictably, sellers still believe they are going to achieve peak pricing that they could have received in 2021 and early 2022. It remains to be seen how long this period of price discovery lasts. The pricing environment is dynamic and we expect to see valuations come down further over the coming months as those operators either having to exit the space or choosing to exit will have to transact at prices that are more reflective of historical cap rates and price per bed values. We continue to work closely with our current operators and with some new operators we've long admired to underwrite and structure each of our acquisition opportunities to ensure the investment pencils for us and our tenants. Turning to the pipe, it currently sits in the $100 to $125 million range. The pipe is primarily made up of skilled nursing and behavioral health assets at this time. We are seeing our standard one-off opportunities and also looking at some medium to large-sized portfolios that may be split up amongst a few of our operators and in some cases can be used to allow us to launch some new operators as we've probably done in the past. And with that, I'll turn it over to Lauren to discuss the financials.

Thanks, Mark. For the quarter, normalized FFO decreased 1.7% over the prior year quarter to $36.1 million, and normalized FAD decreased by 2.6% to $38 million. On a per share basis, normalized FFO decreased a penny to $0.37 per share, and normalized FAD also decreased a penny to $0.39 per share. Rental income for the quarter was $47 million compared to $46.8 million in Q2. The increase of $200,000 is due to the following two items. One, an increase from CPI bumps of $394,000 offset by a decrease of $145,000 from cash collected from tenants who are on a cash basis of accounting. And two, a decrease in reimbursed property expenses of $36,000. Interest income was up $2.5 million due mostly to the loans we closed at the end of last quarter. Interest expense was up 2.1 million from Q2 due to a higher LIBOR rate, which accounted for most of the increase, totaling 1.6 million, and higher borrowings under our revolver, which made up the remaining 486,000. During the quarter, we took additional impairments of 12.3 million on assets held for sale. Property operating expenses were 3.8 million for the quarter, primarily related to the sale of the facilities in Ohio, totaling 3.3 million, with the balance of $500,000 related to properties held for sale. G&A expense was up $181,000 from Q2 due to compensation-related items of $302,000 offset by other corporate-related items of $121,000. I'm still expecting this year's G&A to be around $20 million. Lastly, we recognize the $4.7 million unrealized loss on our loan portfolio. We have elected to account for our loans using the fair value option. As interest rates have risen since we placed these investments, the fair value has declined. I would like to stress that this is an unrealized loss and does not indicate that there will be any issue with collectability of either interest or principal. Cash collections for the quarter came in at 93.4% of contractual rent and includes the application of $424,000 of security deposits. Without the application of the security deposits, cash collections with 92.5% of contractual cash rents. In October, we collected 95.6% of contractual rents due from our operators, but that percentage includes cash deposits. Excluding those cash deposits, contractual cash rents collected was 92.7%. We expect November collections to be similar to what October was, with $0 coming from the application of security deposits. Our liquidity remains extremely strong with approximately $19 million in cash and $405 million available under our revolver. Leverage also continued to be strong with a net debt to normalized EBITDA ratio of 4.2 times, well within our stated range of 4 to 5 times. Our net debt to enterprise value was 30.6% as of quarter end, and we achieved a fixed charge coverage ratio of 5.9 times. And with that, I'll turn it back to Dave.

Great, we hope our report has been helpful and thank you for your continued support and now happy to answer your questions.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Jonathan Hughes from Raymond James. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon or good morning out there. On the seniors housing dispositions and progress, can you just remind us how much of those are paying and not paying rent?

Have we announced a breakdown of that in the past? No.

I don't think we have, Jonathan. Okay. So we'll have to address that probably on a future call.

Yep, fair enough. All right, well, I guess moving to the portfolio then, could you just talk about and give us maybe an update on Covenant Care, Bayshire, and the Aspen portfolios where EBITDA coverage has either improved or stabilized, but it is below one times? And are those all skilled nursing portfolios? Maybe their locations and just any update or outlook on them continuing to pay rent?

Yeah, you bet. So... I'll take Bayshire and Aspen kind of together. Those guys are in our top 10, although we don't have a lot of buildings with them because they've made up the big acquisition that we did last year, those prime markets here in California, big campuses, that there was some turnaround work that needed to be done when we acquired them. And it was in the midst of the pandemic, and so we expected a bit of a ramp in coverage with them. What we're looking at here through June of last year. Is. Inclusive of a lot of those early months of last year, and I'd say that as we sit here today, things are trending a lot better. Particularly Aspen. is making some great changes at one of those buildings that has been a little bit slower than the other. And Bayshire, we expect to continue to report increasing coverage on them. Aspen has a nice size organization beyond the two assets that we have with them and very strong corporate credit. And Bayshire's Seems like they are delivering already a little bit ahead of schedule on their turnaround plans there. So with those two, we don't have any concerns about default. I think that they're going to continue to perform very well going into next year. Covenant Care has been through a change in management. A new CEO started there in June, and we're very close to those guys as well and are pleased to see the moves that they're making. And we're expecting that coverage to increase in coming quarters and we don't expect any problems with rent.

Okay.

That's very helpful. Thank you. And I was hoping you could just kind of talk about your views on transitions or re-tenanting properties and And the discussions between you and an operator, obviously, each situation and negotiation is a little different, but when those inevitably arise, as they do within skilled nursing and seniors housing, how do you weigh care trusts, economics, and preservation of value versus bringing in another operator and setting them up for success?

Well, you're right. In your question, you stated a key point, which is that each deal is pretty unique. A lot depends on the existing relationship and the level of confidence that we have in the operator who's running the portfolio. At the end of the day, the math is simple enough that even I can do it, which is long-term, what's the what's the strategy that's going to preserve the most value for care trust while also being a sustainable win for that operator? So there isn't really a cookie-cutter answer. We look at when there's a question on the table about an operator going sideways, we really look at all of the options from disposition to re-tenanting to cutting rent and keeping the operator to repurposing. And again, a lot depends on the existing relationship and confidence we have in the current operator. Whatever is going to lead to the greatest preservation of value going forward is going to be the strategy we pursue.

Okay. And one more just for me. The all other tenants bucket, that's about 10% of rents. I see EBITDA coverage there is above 1.1 times, which is great to see and recall. Last quarter, there was an operator that actually had negative coverage that dragged it down. Can you maybe give us an update on that coverage for that negative operator and then coverage for the rest in that bucket as you did last quarter? Thanks.

Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Jonathan. Yeah, we stay very close to that operator that's not in our top 10, but they're big enough to have a pretty big impact to that number. There's really no change. since last quarter, if you exclude them from the number, then that 111 times coverage goes to 194, and total portfolio coverage goes to 211. The current contractual rent that through Q3 they're current on far exceeds what we would likely achieve from either re-tenanting or a recycling approach. And so we continue to be patient with them as they continue to pay rent and make progress on their turnaround plan.

Okay. And maybe what's the backing behind them? That's my final question. Thank you.

You know, they have a group of investors that continue to fund this turnaround strategy.

Okay. All right. Appreciate the time. All right. Thanks, Jonathan.

Our next question comes from Juan Santabria from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thanks for the time. Just hoping you could kind of reframe where we are in the repositioning, either through asset sales or re-tenanting some assets. It seems like you've done two and going to four. And if any of the assets have either fallen out of that pool or kind of what's the latest status on dollar value or number of assets that you expect to sell or transition just to give us a bit more breadcrumbs from a modeling perspective?

Yeah, it's pretty fluid as you've picked up on. About half of the assets that are held for sale are right now under a purchase sale agreement that have dates either year end or a little bit past that to close. And then the other half, we are a little bit more fluid than that as we're going down the parallel paths of looking at retenanting versus selling. I don't think we've given any guidance on eventual value that we expect to get from that, particularly because it's a moving target as things fall in and fall out of those buckets.

So that's where we're at.

On the pipeline, just curious on the yields we should expect for the 100, 125, correct me if those numbers were wrong. I'm sure I took the best notes there. And I don't think that included SNFs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that was seniors housing and behavioral. And if it doesn't, where do you see cap rates today really across the three major food groups?

Hey Juan, it's Mark. I would say the yields have obviously moved up. So it's starting in the tens, mid tens at this point for skilled nursing. On the behavioral side, it's somewhere between nine and ten. And then on the assisted side, it's I would say kind of mid to low nines. We're obviously not looking at a lot of seniors housing at this point. I think in my prepared remarks I said skilled nursing and behavioral, which is what we're pretty focused on right now, and the composition of the pipeline is made up predominantly of those two groups. So that's kind of where pricing is as we sit here today.

Just one last one for me. incremental on the balance sheet in terms of bringing down the floating exposure that you could do or want to do or at this point, it's kind of where rates have moved.

Yeah. Hi, Juan. This is Lauren. About half our debt is floating rate debt. However, when we receive the expected proceeds from the sale of the properties that are being marketed, that percentage is going to come down. We have looked at swapping to fixed rate on our term loan, but we don't like those rates when we compare it to the yield curve. So while it may be a bit bumpy for the next six months or so with regards to rate exposure, we feel comfortable with where we're at.

Very much. Good luck with everybody. Condolences, too. Thank you, Vaughn.

Our next question comes from Dave Rogers from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah, good morning out there. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the discussions that you've been having with the potential buyers. Just more details on or have you only worked with kind of one buyer on each set of assets or have you been retraded? Have you had to go find more buyers to close? And then maybe just a second thought on that is given the tough financing market, given your floating rate exposure, have you thought about more seller financing on some of these transactions to get them closed and maybe hedge some of that floating rate exposure with floating rate loans out the other side?

Yeah, I don't think I'll probably tell you anything you wouldn't expect to hear on those discussions with potential buyers. Given how much the world has changed Since we kicked off this process back in Q1, it's just become tougher for them as lenders have kind of tightened up their requirements. And so it's not surprising to us or to anybody, I think, that potential buyers are coming back with extensions for diligence or different asks as they have. That's kind of par for the course. It's the environment that we're in. We're not terribly concerned about it because we can always continue on and re-tenant or do whatever is going to preserve the most value.

That's good.

The second part of that, I guess, any color financing on the assets, anything you would consider along those lines to get more assets moved?

Yeah. Yeah. We'll provide that if needed. to some degree. I mean, we don't want to get too heavy into that, but we'll be flexible to get stuff done that we need to get done.

Okay. And then maybe two cleanup questions for me. One, you got the Ohio sales done a little bit earlier. which was good to see. Did that just start earlier, and what was the yield on that, or what would be the impact to you guys on that outside of the cash? And then the second question on the financing side, the deposits, you said I think in November you don't expect to use any deposits, or at least it's not in kind of the number. What are the deposits you have left remaining from the tenants that haven't paid or aren't paying fully?

You know, we haven't... reported the size of our deposits on hand. I don't have that handy. That's not something we've disclosed in the past. With regards to the TRIO portfolio, they were not paying rent at all this year. And so the immediate impact is paying down the line. And then as we redeploy that, we'll see an uptick.

Great. Thanks, Dave. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Michael Carroll from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Michael, your line is open.

Sorry, I was muted. I wanted to discuss the transaction market and see the differences that you're seeing on the skilled nursing facility side and the seniors housing side. I know what we've heard is that the private market valuations for SNF is actually holding up fairly well, while there's probably some more concerns on the seniors housing side. I mean, do you agree with that overall sentiment?

Hey, Michael, it's Mark. I would say I agree with the second part of that. I think certainly we're seeing, and granted, we don't see a ton of Class A seniors housing, so what we're seeing is a little more kind of middle market, and that certainly feels seems to be in a bit of a free fall. I think on the private market skilled nursing valuation side, I think that's actually a lot has changed in the last couple of weeks and kind of continues to move in our favor more and more every day. So I think those prices are starting to come down. Certainly there is debt available. But it's not attractive enough for the valuations to stay propped up. And I think really we're seeing stuff come down almost daily in terms of where pricing was and the new expectations from either brokers or sellers.

Mark, how far away is, I guess, SNF valuations versus where Care Trust would be comfortable buying some of those properties? I know over the past few years, it's been well above your expectations. I mean, how much closer are those valuations compared to what you're willing to execute on?

You know, I think it's going to be asset dependent, as it always has with us. And we really look for low-hanging fruit. on a specific asset. So, you know, over the last couple years, we've been accustomed to, you know, buying, you know, buildings and assets that, you know, maybe had little to no cash flow but had enough low-hanging fruit in day one changes for ancillaries or, you know, insurance expenses to basically grow lease coverage fairly quickly within the first 90 days. So, you know, I think it has a ways to come down I think certain states will probably stay propped up. I think the end of the public health emergency, I think will be the end of, you know, end of the line for a lot of operators. So I would expect, you know, at some point, you know, mid next year to see, you know, call it, you know, more distress. But we're, we're seeing a healthy amount of, of portfolios on the market right now that are losing significant dollars. And, uh, you know, look, if bridge lenders are, you know, somewhere in the sevens to eights, you know, HUD today is probably six and a half to six and three quarters all in. The spread's not there. And so, you know, you can't go high leverage on, you know, from a bridge lending perspective. So really, you know, REITs are in a pretty good position to kind of, you know, pick and choose what works for us and for our operators. So, you know, I think we'll probably, My crystal ball is probably, you know, six to 12 months away from seeing, you know, pricing come down significantly to where, you know, call it asset economics kind of fit with, you know, with the values. But that doesn't mean that we won't be acquisitive and look for specific assets that fit our operators in their geographies where they have, the best human capital and leadership to turn those assets.

And how aggressive are you willing to be pursuing acquisitions? I'm assuming a lot of these assets that are on the market are turnaround stories. And I know historically, Care Trust has bought a lot of assets and transitioned out the operators. I mean, how aggressive are you willing to do that? And are you willing to underwrite some pretty big upticks in EBITDA to make those deals work?

Dave Kuntz, i'll take that one is Dave yeah I think we will be aggressive, I think that there's going to be offered there's going to be so many opportunities. Dave Kuntz, In the coming months of of operators that are facilities that have just lost their way that if you bring in a new operator fresh leadership can can really move the needle. And we can either watch that or participate in it. And I think we have enough really capable operators who have a history of adding value and pulling the appropriate levers to both quality care and the employees and the culture. And it translates down to the financial performance that you could see us doing some deals next year that might have a ramp for our operators for rent. to give them some time to turn those buildings around. But again, like Mark said, we just take each deal separately and underwrite it to what it can do.

Great.

And then just last, are you mostly focused on skilled nursing facility assets right now? I mean, would you pursue seniors housing properties too?

Yeah, philosophically, strategically, we haven't written off seniors housing. We're simply seeing more skilled nursing today than we have in the past. And our bench, candidly, of operators is just deeper on the skilled nursing side today. And so we're open for business on skilled and seniors and behavioral health. Okay, great. Thanks. Thanks, Mike.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Stephen Balicat from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. Thanks for taking the question. So this is kind of an age-old question, I guess, but just among your top ten operators and probably some of the other ones as well, there are some where the rent coverage is sub 1.0 on an EBITDAR basis but still above 1.0 on an EBITDARM. it's always a little bit murky on the fees in between those two ratios and what is being spent on, how much is truly cash versus non-cash, et cetera. But maybe just remind us which set of ratios you're more focused on. And while you talked about some of the individual operators that are sub 1.0, are there any where you're not too worried about the tenant being able to pay rent because the EBITDAR coverage is still 1.0, even though EBITDAR is sub 1? Just kind of want to dive into that component of that. you know, the ability to pay rent and just, you know, the nuances on the differences in the coverage ratios on some of these tenants. Thanks.

Yeah, thank you. So the difference for us is we apply the standard 5% management fee to come to go from EBITDARM to EBITDAR so that everybody is, you know, viewed under the same standard lens To your question about concern about paying rent, let me be clear that we really do not have any concerns about rent payments from our top 10 tenants, in spite of a few of them being under one times. Yes, the management fee can help, but in a bigger sense, the larger corporate credit is the momentum is also there and the dialogue and open transparent relationships that we have with them give us great confidence that they will continue to to improve that coverage to north of one times in short order but generally that five percent management fee is is not completely used for back office corporate services, and it does produce some extra cash flow for those guys. Every operator is a little bit different about how much of that 5% is actually used versus providing some free cash flow to them, so it's hard to really extrapolate.

Okay. That's helpful, though. I appreciate the color. Thanks.

You got it.

Our last question comes from Austin Werschmitt from KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah, just wanted to touch on sort of the updated timeline for completing sort of the portfolio optimization process. And, you know, is that still on track for year end or could we see it bleed into 2023?

Yeah, like we said on the call and in the script, we have about half of it that has signed PSAs. Most of that has target closes for the end of this year, but given the market that we're in, it's pretty fluid and could see some of that pushing to next year.

Would you guys expect by, you know, fourth quarter results to be able to provide, you know, 2023 FFO guidance?

Hope so, but we'll have to determine it depending on the timing of these dispositions.

And then just wanted to touch, it looked like one of the assets fell out of the pool of repurposing opportunities this quarter. I think it went from three down to two. Could you just kind of give additional detail as to what drove that?

Yeah, during the diligence process for licensure for the behavioral health property in that particular market, the timeline to repurpose that was determined to be a lot longer than our operator had originally expected. And so that caused us to revisit the issue, and we mutually agreed that it would probably make more sense for us to just re-tenant that as opposed to agree to a much longer timeline before receiving rent on that property.

Understood. And then, Dave, on your comments in the release around occupancy trends, Were those updated specifically for the third quarter? And should that signal coverage levels have bottomed? Or could expense headwinds continue to offset some of those occupancy gains?

Yeah, so the occupancy is through the third quarter. Just remember that when we give occupancy numbers that are that real time, They can fluctuate a little bit as the actual financials come in And you know going forward as it relates to coverage there's a lot of variables in play right now from skilled mix to overall occupancy and And what the labor market looks like as the recession takes hold so it's it's pretty tough to look in a crystal ball right now But hopefully we'll have some more clarity on that in the next quarter

And then just last one for me, we've kind of covered a lot on the acquisition pipeline, but I'm just curious if those new deals that you're evaluating, do you plan to kind of dig in further, I guess, in those top five states that you're concentrated in, or are these broader opportunities where you could gain scale within some of those states where you have much less exposure? Sure.

We're open to grow wherever we have an operator that we'd like to partner with. There are certainly going to be exciting opportunities, we think, to expand existing relationships and existing geographies, but we're also nurturing several relationships with new operators that we hope to enter into agreements with in the coming year.

Got it. Thanks for the time. You bet.

And we have another question from Teo Acusena from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Questions specifically around Ensign as a top tenant. Again, they've kind of entered this relationship with Sabra, and it's kind of interesting because not that long ago, they were just kind of talking purely about their captive read. So I'm just kind of curious, again, when you kind of see what's happening with Sabra, Does that change any way how you kind of think about your relationship with Ensign? Does that make you not feel like there may be more opportunities to work with them going forward rather than less?

No. I don't think that their announced deal with Sabra affects our relationship in any capacity in any way. We've got a great relationship with those guys and are big fans of the – the quality of their work. And like we expanded our relationship with them last year, if there's opportunities to do that going forward, we absolutely will.

Okay. I guess I could just clarify, like I just thought they were kind of going towards building their own REITs. It was kind of interesting for them to kind of decide to be a tenant again for a bunch of assets. That's kind of what I was curious about.

Yeah, no, I think they've always... They've always prioritized acquiring real estate before the Care Trust spinoff and since the Care Trust spinoff. And I think they would love to do that still. But even with that preference, if you look back, they have done a lot of leases at the same time. So I think the thing about Ensign is they are very disciplined in their growth. and the opportunities that they pursue, and they found the ability to be disciplined growers both through real estate and leases.

Gotcha. Okay, that's helpful. And then Dave, if you could just indulge me again. Your commentary generally today sounded cautiously optimistic, which is great to hear. You know, but you're also kind of, you know, hedging that a little bit, if I may use those words, with environment is still somewhat uncertain. So I guess, you know, what kind of data points specifically are you looking for over the next, you know, one to two quarters to truly feel like things have turned?

You know, I'd say that we really want to see agency, third-party temporary agency usage come down in a meaningful way. in those facilities. The best, I'd say, sign of stability for an operator is to have essentially no third-party temporary agency staffing. Not only is it expensive, but it is a detriment to the quality of care and culture within any facility. So while those remain high, it's going to be a little bit of a constraint on both occupancy growth and just a return to kind of more of a pre-pandemic feel.

Gotcha.

Thank you. You bet.

We have no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Care Trust CEO Dave Sedgwick for closing remarks.

Well, thank you again for your continued support. We'll see some of you at NAREIT next week. And if not, you have any questions, you know where to find us. Take care.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.