Sienna Senior Living Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ciena Senior Living Inc's Q2 2026 conference call. Today's call is hosted by Nitin Jain, President and Chief Executive Officer, and David Hung, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Investments of Ciena Senior Living Inc. Please be aware that certain statements or information discussed today are for looking and actual results could differ materially. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement or information. Please refer to the forward-looking information and risk factor sections in the company's public filings, including its most recent MD&A and AIF for more information. You will also find a more fulsome discussion of the company's results in its MD&A and financial statements for the period, which are posted on CEDAR Plus and can be found on the company's website, sienaliving.ca. Today's call is being recorded. and a replay will be available. Instructions for accessing the call are posted on the company's website and the details are provided in the company's news release. The company has posted slides which accompany the host's remarks on the company's website under events and presentations. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Jain. Please go ahead, Mr. Jain.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Sienna's second quarter reflects the continued improvements across our operations and the success of a diversification strategy. We delivered strong organic growth for the 14th consecutive quarter with both our long-term care and retirement operations achieving double-digit growth. We also completed acquisitions of two retirement residences during the quarter, maintained a strong balance sheet and investment credit rating, and formed a strategic partnership to accelerate our long-term care redevelopments. This is happening at a compelling time for Canadian senior living. The sector remains exceptionally strong, driven by fast-growing demand from an aging population and limited supply. Moving to slide five, during the second quarter, same property NOI increased by 15.2% in the retirement segment and by 22.6% in the long-term care. Key drivers of the strong results in the retirement segment were occupancy and rate increases. In addition to higher care revenue, Average same property occupancy was up 150 basis point year over year and has reached 94.1% in the second quarter. Together with a growing scale and operating efficiencies, this led to a 200 basis point margin expansion in a same property portfolio. Quarter over quarter, occupancy was marginally lower compared to the first quarter as a result of slightly elevated move out activity. Subsequent to the end of the second quarter, occupancy increased to 94.5% in July. Our well-established sales platform and focused marketing campaigns continue to generate strong leads. This was evident at our recent annual open house, which attracted more than 500 attendees and resulted in an increase in qualified leads and deposits. We also continue our focus on hospital outreach and excellent relationships with healthcare partners in the local communities where we operate. A key driver behind the strong performance of our retirement operations was higher care revenue. This is the result of our Aspera wellness program with more efficient processes, improved staffing models, and consistent care offerings. The program was launched last year and has led to an approximate 37% increase in care revenue year over year. With respect to Siena's long-term care operations, fully occupied homes with growing wait lists, high revenue from private accommodations, and government funding increases all added to the strength of the results. In addition, the contributions from acquisitions and developments are further supporting our strong performance in the second quarter. Ciena's long-term care operations add significant value to our business and provide stability given that they're largely insulated from market volatility or economic uncertainty. After completing our first long-term care redevelopments in North Bay and Brantford last year, We continue to advance our redevelopment pipeline, in particular in the Greater Toronto Area. We expect to start construction at two projects in the GTA in early 2027, including a 448-bed long-term care community at Siena's Glen Rouge site in Toronto, and a recently announced 256-bed redevelopment at a Streetsville community in Mississauga. The two projects are part of Siena's 1600-bed redevelopment Pipeline which is more than 80% of which more than 80% is located in the GTA. We have been actively sourcing land and with recent site acquisitions in Brampton and Toronto, we now have land for the majority of the projects in our pipeline. We also continue to be active on the acquisitions front with acquisition of two retirement residences for 100 million finalized during the quarter and a purchase agreement for a newly built 68 million long-term care property under contract. These acquisitions further elevate the quality of Ciena's platform by adding modern, high-quality assets in attractive markets. Ciena's acquisition pipeline remains strong as we continue to pursue opportunities that fit our diversified growth strategy. Beyond our acquisitions and redevelopments, we remain focused on creating value within our existing portfolio through asset optimization, strategic renovations, and enhancements across our retirement and long-term care platforms. In our retirement segment, we are focused on aligning our residences with market demand, expanding services, and clinical care offerings to better support residents as their care needs change. This will allow residents to stay in our retirement residences longer and has already generated notable results, both in terms of financial performance and resident satisfaction. In our long-term care segment, we continue to enhance our operations to improve the resident experience. We are also encouraged by the recent introduction of a renovation program for long-term care homes by the Ontario government. The program provides capital funding to renovate existing long-term care homes or convert vacant buildings to long-term care homes. This program gives us additional options to make improvements to our portfolio and we are currently evaluating possible opportunities to participate in the program. Moving to slide nine, in July, Ciena was once again named one of Canada's best companies by Time Magazine. We are truly honored to have earned this recognition for a second consecutive year. We've also moved higher in the rankings this year and earned a place among the top 125 companies recognized in Canada. While our significant growth played a role in earning this recognition, more than anything, it is a reflection of the passion of our 15,500 team members who care for approximately 14,000 residents each and every day. Their impact comes to life in our 2026 Impact Report published today which shows how they are enriching the lives of thousands of residents, supporting families, and strengthening communities across Canada. Ciena's strong team member engagement, record-low turnover, and purpose-driven culture is at the heart of our success and will continue to be one of the company's greatest competitive advantages as we execute our growth strategy. With that, I'll turn it over to David for an update on our financial results.

Thank you, Nitin, and good morning, everyone. I will start on slide 11 for financial results. In Q2 2026, revenue on a proportionate basis increased by 13.6% year-over-year to $288.2 million. This increase was largely due to acquisitions, occupancy, and rental rate growth, as well as increased care revenue in the retirement segment. Adding to the increase were the contributions from our long-term care platform including higher flow-through funding for direct care, increased private accommodation revenues, $2.1 million in retroactive funding, Thank you for joining us. Excluding these retroactive items in both years, same property NOI would have increased by 13.5%. During Q2 2026, operating funds from operations increased by 35% to $39.6 million compared to last year, primarily due to higher NOI partially offset by higher income tax and interest expenses. Adjusted funds from operations increased On a per share basis, OSFO and AFFO increased by 16.4% and by 24.4% respectively in Q2 2026. Ciena's Q2 2026 AFFO payout ratio was lowered to 72.3% compared to 89.5% in Q2 2025. This improvement highlights Ciena's strong operating results, the contributions from our completed redevelopments and accretive acquisitions We ended Q2 2026 with a strong financial position, including approximately $604 million in liquidity and nearly $1.6 billion of unencumbered assets. At approximately 35%, our net debt to adjusted gross book value is conservative and our weighted average cost of debt remains low at 3.9%. Year over year, we also Thank you, David. As we enter the second half of 2026, we are confident in our ability to deliver on our growth objectives. We are confirming our 2026 target of more than 10% same property NOI growth in our retirement segment.

In our long-term care segment, we are raising our same property NOI growth target to mid to high single digits. With respect to our platform growth, we believe that our ability to operate and invest across the full continuum of care communities to differentiate Ciena and gives us a wide range of growth opportunities from private pay independent living to government-funded long-term care, from acquisitions to redevelopments, and from financing our growth with Ciena's equity to third-party joint venture capital. With that in mind, we are excited about our new joint venture partnerships with FIARA Infrastructure. FIARA Infrastructure is a global infrastructure investment manager and wholly owned subsidiary of FIARA Capital, a leading Canadian investment management firm with over $160 billion of assets under management. Given the significant capital requirements for long-term care redevelopments, the joint venture under which both Ciena and FIARA will hold a 50% ownership interest in selective redevelopments projects will allow us to execute more projects over a short period of time and diversify our development risk. Initially, the joint venture is targeting $625 million in redevelopment projects, with Glen Rouge and Streetsville being the first projects under consideration. All of this comes at a time when Canadian senior living is performing exceptionally well, and we believe Ciena is ideally positioned to benefit both over the near and long term. On behalf of our entire team and our board of directors, I want to thank our shareholders and to all of you on this call for your continued support. With that, we are open for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and enter the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. And your first question comes from the line of Sairam Srinivas with ATB Coremark. Your line is now open.

Good morning, guys. Congratulations on a good quarter. Nitin, just looking at the FIERA JV, congratulations on that. Can you comment on the scope of the JV in terms of the size, especially considering the two projects that you're contemplating adding in could probably amount to about 55% of the capacity there?

Yes, good morning, Sairam. The intention is to not have high concentration with any given partner. We have enjoyed working with them so far. The idea is to let's test the joint venture up to a certain amount, and over time, both parties have an opportunity to add more to it. So I would use that as a starting point, and as we do projects together and get more comfortable, we can add more projects to it.

That's great. And Nitin, when it comes to timing of these projects, if you were to think about, you know, the timing you guys were thinking probably, let's say, last year for redevelopments in the GTA versus now considering the new policy that have come out, you know, what's the revised timing look like versus what you thought earlier?

You mean in terms of starting of the current projects or the total pipeline in general?

Total pipeline in general.

The reality is till last year there was really no redevelopment program that worked for GTA so that program came out last year which we're extremely thankful for. However, behind the scenes we already had land and we were planning to get these projects going because it takes at least 24 months of zoning work, drawings work to get shovel ready. So we have been working behind the scenes to get those projects with being optimistic that eventually there would be a program in the GTA. So I think if anything, that has given us more confidence in our ability to execute in GTA. We finally bought the last two pieces of land for our currency homes. It frankly serves all of the homes that we need to redevelop. So we bought land in Brampton and we bought another big portion of land in Toronto area. So from a GTA development, we're well covered. So I would expect this program to take next five to seven years roughly.

My last question is around the new funding policy that's recently been announced. Do you anticipate more M&A in the space right now considering you could probably see a lot more people getting interested in adding more properties onto the LTC pipeline?

The new funding program now has existed for four or five years and it has made development possible. The GTA program came out last year, and that obviously makes programs possible in GTA. What continues to not change is that it is a complex project with high barriers to entry. In most cases, government is looking for someone to be an experienced operator because the complexity has only gone up. There are a lot more people employed in each one of the homes. When hours of care in Ontario, for example, went up from 2.8 to 4, means you have around 35, 40% more staff now in every home. So a 160-bed home could easily have a couple of hundred people in it. So as capital is definitely more interested in the space, which is very welcome, and FIERA being one of them, and we're looking forward to very good partnership. But what has not changed, the barriers to entry and the complexity of operations, and that's why having the scale and the ability to operate continues to be a key for us.

So, I mean, just probably looking at the June 2026 announcement that just came out, would you say essentially the same standards that applied earlier would apply to this one as well, where you'd need really experienced operators to step in and not other people interested?

Saran, are you talking about the recently announced renovation program?

Yes.

Oh, thank you. That renovation program only applies in most cases to the homes that are currently seahomes. And it's an opportunity where you cannot find land to redevelop it on site, which are usually complex. But in some cases, it could actually make sense. So we wouldn't believe that would make any significant changes other than to make home renovations possible where there is not opportunity to buy additional land.

Perfect. Thank you, Nitin. Thank you, David. I'll turn it back.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Kelcher with TD Cohen. Your line is now open.

Thanks. Good morning. Just to clarify that last on the renovation of existing C homes, that new program, you guys not have all the land that you need in Toronto to redo your C properties right now?

We recently acquired two properties in GTA, which was very difficult to buy in the past because we were always competing with multi-res and a few other areas, which have, because of the slowdown there, we have been able to source land. But I'll just use an example. We have a property on St. George Street, which is actually called St. George. It's right next to UFT. And you can potentially move that home, you know, 15, 20 kilometers away, but the reality, it serves... A very specific population and it's much needed. And a program like that is a perfect application there where you're landlocked. It is very difficult to buy land anywhere close to there, but you can renovate that 50-year-old building and afford it to make it for the next 25, 30 years. So it would apply to very specific scenarios such as those, Jonathan. That would be the purpose behind it. We don't really expect that it'll have thousands of additional beds built. I think it'll be very specific to certain homes. And at this stage, it would be a pilot program.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So on the LTC portfolio, the margins were up, even if we back out the one-time stuff, the margins were up nicely year over year. And I guess that's partly on lower staff turnover and lower agency staffing. Do you maybe quantify the savings that you got on those two?

Yeah, so I would break down the increase in LTC NOI into a couple of components. So definitely the staff savings and the agency, that would have been a couple of percentage points that contributed towards the year-over-year NOI growth. I would also highlight a couple of other things. First of all, it's around higher government funding. So similar to what we saw in Ontario a couple of years where we had the catch-up funding, we're seeing the same thing now in Alberta and BC. So as we reported, Alberta has increased their funding by 7.25%, and that was to catch up for several years where the increases were a little bit lower. And BC did the same thing. increased their accommodation funding by 20% after not having increased it for many years. So that is a factor within why our NOI increased. The second one is around redevelopments. We are seeing all of the accretive impact in NOI from the opening of our We also get more preferred accommodation revenues. Our overall maintenance and operating costs on a per bed basis is lower. And then the other reason that contributed this quarter was around private revenue. So within our long-term care portfolio, we do have around 200 beds that are private pay long-term care. And so we've been able to increase

Okay, that is helpful. But on the staffing levels, how sustainable do you think 20% turnover is?

Hi, Jonathan. Good morning. I mean, we have never been in the space where the turnover is in 20%. I came from the hospitality sector where turnover was more expected close to 100%. Part of the lower tunnel is driven by general macro factors where many people are not hiring. There was a lot of PSWs and nurses who graduated in the recent year, so we have definitely benefited from that. We continue to believe some of the work we did at Ciena, whether it's a shared ownership program or the work on cultural alignment, adds to a lot of it as well. So I think it's hard to predict, can we stay at 20% for the next year? for the next five, ten years. I think the macro factor definitely would have a play. But internally, we will continue to do things that we're doing to reduce this turnover. And I think to your question, I think it's very hard to quantify those things. I'll maybe just give – usually when you hire a staff member, on average, you're training them for a week roughly. So instead of hiring – when you have 15,000 team members and the turnover is 50%, you're hiring 7,500 people Now at 20% you're hiring 3,000 people, so that's 4,500 people less, a week less of training, that's one. Second, team members being in the roles for longer. There is a lot more efficiency there. Family members are happy, residents are happy because they understand the needs and wants for our residents and families. And lastly, it allows us for our team members to grow within the company. So again, as we look at Recruitment costs and filling roles, we see more and more promotions internally. I mean, just in the first half of this year, we had 80 promotions into management from frontline or management to bigger roles, including senior leadership within Ciena, which, again, significant savings in recruitment, but even bigger savings in people already knowing the culture and fit more easily within Ciena's platform.

Okay, that's helpful. And then just lastly, the full year bump to the long-term care same property NOI, does that exclude the one-time items? It does. It excludes the one-time items. Okay, thanks. I'll turn it back.

Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Calmar with Desjardins. Your line is now open.

Thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to go back to the newly announced JV. Nitin, I think you said that the program will take about five to seven years, which I think is pretty consistent with what you'd said previously. I just wanted to get a better understanding of how the formation of this joint venture actually changes the cadence of project starts versus what was anticipated prior to its formation.

Lawrence, so the joint venture would not change the timing of project starts. The projects will start when they're supposed to start. What it allows us to do is actually do more projects. So we have been quite clear from the beginning that we don't want more than roughly 10% of our assets under development. So as some of you all rightly pointed out, the $375 million between these two projects would be roughly 10% of our asset value at around $3.5 billion or so. So what it allowed us to do is start working on additional projects which we would not have been able to do. So previously, if you did not find capital partners, either we'll do other creative structures or figure out a way to spread them out a bit more. What it allows us to do is be actively sourcing land and actively working on putting more projects. So essentially, it has doubled our capacity for redevelopment.

So you don't expect it to actually, you don't expect to start more developments any sooner per se. It just kind of gives you the backstop to, I guess, execute on, or the certainty, I guess, to execute on more projects than you had before. Is that a good way to think of it?

I would say it's a combination. So what it does, so for Streetsville and Grand Rouge, the project already announced and the one under construction, which is in Keswick, It will stay on track and they are all on an expedited basis. One would be finished next year, which is Keswick, and the other two will start early next year. If we did not have a capital partner, what it will do is you probably would not look at any additional projects to start next year or the year after. Given where we are in a pipeline, there is a high likelihood that we might add additional projects next year or announced next year and begin construction in 2028. So again, it has doubled our speed of adding projects to our pipeline.

Okay, okay, that's sort of what I was getting at. Okay, that's very helpful. And then I guess maybe I'm going to keep piggybacking off of my peers' questions here, but on the LTC, same property and OI growth, do you guys think this is something that can stay elevated into 2027 or is this sort of a 2026 phenomenon and then we go back to, you know, low single digit, same property and OI growth?

I mean, our... Our medium-term forecast or projection would be long-term care, stable, predictable. It will eventually moderate back into the low single digit. Whether that is by the end of 2026, 2027 has yet to be seen. We are still seeing governments respond to the need for long-term care and like what we've seen in BC and Alberta where they've done these catch-up funding amounts. So eventually it will moderate back into low single digits, whether it's 2027 is a little bit hard to say at this point.

Okay, I guess that's a good problem to have. And then maybe just lastly, before I let you guys go, on the retirement side, are you seeing any meaningful acceleration in market rents at this time?

I mean, market rents and annual rent increases have been pretty consistent. So, you know, our goal is not to increase rents by 20% and upset everyone. We would rather have sustained growth over the next 5-10 years than a big bang for a year. A lot of upset residents. So we continue to see the same rate we have seen in the past. You know, when you're at 95% occupancy, again, you have an opportunity to set your market rates on a consistent basis. So we are not really seeing any changes from what we've seen in the last two or three years. Other than the fact that, you know, we are seeing a lot more care-focused revenue, not only we have clarified our programs and made them more standardized and they're more operationally efficient, but the residents are looking for more care. And when we're doing a strategic renovations, which we have quite a few projects underway, we're adding more cares to our retirement homes.

Okay. Okay, thank you so much. I'll turn it back.

Your next question comes from the line of Brad Sturgis with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. Just wanted to circle back to the formation of the new JV with FIERA and just understand the mechanics of it a bit more. I guess Ciena will be acting as a development manager over the course of the construction. Would you be earning development fees along the way or how should we think about perhaps that type of income stream through the construction process?

Sure. Good morning, Brad. So we would be, as developers, we would be earning development fees. We would also be wending in our land and the work that we have done so far because many of these projects are pretty far along at fair market value. And in addition, we would manage these assets. All of those fees, obviously, would be confidential because of our joint venture terms and conditions, but they are completely would be at market. So if a third-party appraiser would do an appraisal of a construction project, what they would assume market development fee would be. You can assume those would be the same fee in R and the same applies to management fee. So a truly third party arm's length market fee structure.

Perfect. And then just in terms of the understanding of the cash or the acquisition structure, As construction starts, there's an acquisition by FIERA of 50%. Would Ciena receive cash in at that point, or is it just effectively reducing your cash outlay for the construction phase?

At the inception of the partnership, both Ciena and FIERA would contribute an equal amount. Again, to Nitin's point, in the case of Ciena, Part of our contribution is going to be the fair value of land, and FIERA's contribution would be cash. From there on in, our expectation is to get project-level financing to finance the rest of the project.

Perfect. And then, just as you're thinking or contemplating a new project, does FIERA have a right of first look to participate in future projects that you may commence? Is this sort of being driven by the Siena side in terms of whether you want to bring in a partner on future projects?

I think there are few terms and conditions around which projects we take to FIERA. We continue to have the rights to do them ourselves. This is only focused in Ontario. So I think without revealing our confidential terms and conditions, I think FIERA would be a great partner for projects Thank you for joining us today. Obviously, we would never have any intent to sell any long-term care homes or to give our operations. And FIERA has the same intent. This is not a fund which has a time limit attached to it. So based on all our conversations so far, in their mind, this is an evergreen joint venture.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Himanshu Gupta with Scotiabank. Your line is now open.

Thank you and good morning. So first from Rediamond Homes, your 2026 outlook is occupancy of 95% plus. Is that the year end target or is it like average for the year?

That would be our year end target. And in terms of average, we would anticipate being pretty close to that number as well.

Okay, and then what percentage of your portfolio is already in that 95% plus range right now within Seen Property?

The reality is the vast majority of our portfolio would be in that range and many homes which are consistently at 100%. So, you know, where you're in the 95% range, I mean, we saw a bit of dip in occupancy in The second quarter, and then now we see that coming up. I mean, when you are at that range, I mean, you are fine-tuning perfection, you know, at 95% retirement, because you'll always have one or two homes which will have a medium-term small impact if another retirement home is open, which has been less and less, or a long-term care home opens. So I think you can expect occupancy to stay consistent and call it the 94% to 96% range, you know, in the medium to long term.

Got it. Okay. So, you know, on that note, occupancy, I think, looks like they've got a handle in terms of where the stabilized occupancy will shake out. You know, you said 94 to 96%. In that context, do we know where the margins will shake out? Like, you know, I think it's around like 41% on the same property side of things. Agency staffing is already low. Staff turnover is also, you know, pretty low there as well. What are the other levels you can pull to move the margins, let's say, into mid-40s or move from here?

Right. We continue to believe that we have opportunity to grow our margins. It was 42% in Q2. The other levers would continue to be rental rate increases, both in place and when residents turn over. So we see that those rental rate increases Thank you for joining us. over double, and we continue to see significant increases in care revenues, especially as we standardize our care packages, make our labor more efficient. We've been able to, and we think we can continue to grow our care margins as we make it more efficient and standardized packages.

Okay, that's helpful. And then turning to acquisitions, how's the acquisition pipeline, let's say today versus compared to the last year? And are you still targeting acquisition this year close to last year levels?

I think our goal would be that it would not be an anomaly if what we did last year will repeat it this year. The market continues to be extremely strong. We have also opened a bigger market for us, which is Quebec, considering 50% of all retirement homes in Canada are in fact in Quebec. So we are actively looking to grow in that market as well. Obviously, we are a bit more selective because we are not looking for one property. We would need a bit of a structure to make sure we are setting up our back office and either work with a third-party manager, or if we do it ourselves, that there's enough scale there. We continue to believe that we'll have multiple years of acquisition opportunity ahead of us. Considering we're not in Quebec, in Alberta, we don't own a single retirement home. We only manage one. We have only four long-term care homes there. BC, our portfolio, has opportunity to grow. We're quite confident in our ability to grow for the next few years.

Fair enough. and maybe the last question is on the development side. So now you've got some, you know, funding support, reinforcements on the LTC development. Does that free up some capital for retirement home development or are you happy doing the acquisition, what you have been doing in the recent times?

You will see us do some retirement development, not dissimilar to what we've done in the past. We did one in Niagara Falls with our partners, Reichman Senior Housing. We build another one in Brantford as Campus of Care. And we continue to look for the right development partners to open to do retirement homes. You know, if you get to a space of call one a year for retirement home with a development partner, I think we would be very happy with that pace. Again, managing the upside on retirement home growth, but also managing the development risk and opportunity. You should definitely see us develop retirement homes as well.

Awesome. Sorry, one quick last one on LTC. I think the OA funding got announced for 26-27, around 2%. Obviously, same as last year. Is that in line with your expectations?

It is. It was 2% and is in line with our expectations.

Okay, so it's a good runway to assume on a go-forward basis as well.

For Ontario, the funding over the medium to long term will be in line with inflation.

Awesome. Okay. Thank you, guys, and I'll turn it back.

Your next question comes from the line of Guiliano Thornhill with National Bank of Canada. Your line is now open.

Hey guys, good morning everyone. Just wanted to go back to the joint venture. Maybe we went back a few years ago. I don't think infrastructure investors or funds would have kind of been there, or maybe I was wrong. I'm just kind of wondering what changed. I know the Toronto and the revised funding for redevelopment definitely helped, but is there anything else that these partners are looking at or really buying for in assets that they are partnering with you on?

Hi, Juliana. Good morning. So there have been infrastructure funds which have been active in this space in the past as well. So I don't think that has changed. I think what has changed is with given the investment both in Ontario, and we speak a lot about Ontario, but the reality is Alberta is also building more long-term care capacity. So the whole idea of government investment into healthcare, especially into long-term care, is becoming more mainstream. I mean, previously, forget about long-term care, but every senior Every real estate conference we went to, there was a group which was, they lumped all different sectors together and senior was one of them. And now investors are focused on senior housing as a sector in general. So I think part of it is driven just by the scale of growth in this space. And the second, the last four or five years, from 2020 to 2022, there was a lot of turmoil, not only in operations, but funding as well. and our feedback with government has always been this is an infrastructure play and if there are big shocks in the system, that will make capital not invest in this space. And to government's credit, especially in both Ontario and Alberta, they continue to fund the sector appropriately in line with inflation and we see the result with more and more incoming calls and interest from infrastructure funds.

And then Ontario is kind of the leader. Do you think there's any like policy risks going forward related to that kind of positive funding tone right now?

The funding applies to all different ownership structure. The funding is appropriate to build these homes and the reality is that it's much cheaper to build a long-term care bed than a hospital bed. which not only financially is a better thing but the reality is no one should be in a hospital living for a year or two years. That's more for urgent care and from a hospital space they are very happy for residents to not be in hospitals when they're not needed. So in fact it's not only a win from an economical perspective but it's the right thing to do for the senior population. So there's obviously when you work with government there could be changes time to time but we work with all different governments in four provinces and long-term care continues to be a key area of focus for all of them.

I'm also just kind of wondering just how will projects be selected for the JV? Like what makes one project a better fit for it? Will you have say in the projects? Can you just kind of expand on which are going to be potentially put into it and which may not be?

Sure, so I'll just give maybe some general guidelines without getting into specifics. So we would, you know, it would be Ciena's choice which projects we decide to present to FIERA and it'll be FIERA's choice which projects they decide to pursue. But again, we have a lot of alignment and that's the reason why we partner with them that we think that we can partner with them on majority of the projects that we plan to redevelop. and Streetsville and Glen Rouge would be a good start to it.

And then for those two, I'm just trying to get to how much invested capital is there for Glen Rouge and Streetsville as it is. I'm just trying to get to what kind of the net equity commitment might be if those projects are chosen for the joint venture.

Yeah, so the total cost for both those projects would be around $375 million dollars. So if you assume, let's say, 70% to 80% or approximately project financing, that would tell you how much equity that will be required approximately.

But I guess I'm just trying to get to what is the land cost for those right now and recognize on your books because that will net against the commitment that you'll need.

Maybe if I say it in the generic terms, I think to just add to David's comment, assuming 75%. So you're looking at, call it close to 80, $90 million of equity on both sides. That's $45 million each, which frankly is not a big check. So without getting into each specific or what land value is, all I would say is basically the majority of equity we have to put in would be there. And in addition to land, There's a lot of additional work which has gone in getting the site zone, having drawings ready, you know, all the work with architectures and all the soft cost, you know, municipal fees. So, you know, take it from a range from 0 to 45 and even the highest range is not high.

Yeah, that's helpful. Just my last question is on the Glen Rouge development itself. That is pretty large. I'm just wondering why that's been larger than your previous projects and Is there potential to replicate that elsewhere in your portfolio, or is that kind of more of a one-off major project?

I would say it's a bit of a one-off project. Four or five years ago, it was very difficult as a long-term care operator to buy land in GTA. This is a site we already own, so it makes sense to build. And we have quite a bit of land. It's four acres plus. So we had appropriate land. It was very difficult to find additional land anywhere else. It is at a location where it's easy for staff transportation. There's a lot of demand in that area. So all the factors worked out to build it that large. If we had to redo it, maybe we'll do it in two stages. But again, that project has already had municipal approval. So we're pretty far along and we are confident in our ability. We believe we have the right general contractor that we have worked with on two other projects. So we are putting that infrastructure behind, not only to build it right, but also how we operate it. So we know that we cannot operate a 448 bed long-term care home as 161. So we have full confidence in our operations team that we're putting the right infrastructure to run it as a much bigger home.

Great. And just to clarify that there is no, you're not consolidating beds from another kind of nearby LTC home or anything like that?

We would be consolidating. So it'll have impact on another home So this would be a combination of the current beds at Glen Rouge, adding additional beds from home, and then residents will move over to the new home.

Okay. All right. Thank you, guys.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 in your telephone keypad. And your next question comes from the line of Tao Wule with CIBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. I just wanted to start, you mentioned, you know, you've had really good growth on the care side of the business. Just to understand the definition of that, you know, I sort of normally think of, like, the monthly cost as, you know, 50% rent and 50% non-rent. What exactly is in, when you're talking about your care revenues have increased, what exactly is in that bucket and how much is that of the sort of monthly cost?

Sure, I can field that question and tell. So when we talk about care revenue, there are two components to care revenue. One, when someone moves in and they're part of an assisted living are all part of the care that they provide. When we talk about care revenue growth, we're more talking about sort of the ancillary or the a la carte care. So this would include things like medication management or assistance with bathing as an example. and so when residents come in and they come in for you know to an independent supportive living suite they might need some additional care and so that is the care growth that we're referring to predominantly.

And do you think in terms of like the suite mix between independent living, assisted living, memory care like We're sort of at the early part of the baby boomer cycle. Do you feel like the suite mix is right, or is this sort of going to be the relief valve if there are issues, like you'll just try and sell more care within an independent living suite versus moving someone to assisted living?

Tal, you should work in senior housing because I think you're asking a very important question here. So I think a few things are changing. In Ontario, for example, which is very common in Quebec, there are not many senior apartments but we are seeing more demand for senior apartments. I mean, we bought a property in Oshawa and it's running at nearly full occupancy and others have added more senior apartments in Ontario. So people are also choosing retirement living as a way of choice because the average age is closer to 75 and it's not completely need-driven but it's need-driven from a perspective of if I'm gonna live in an apartment, I'd rather live in a place which has security and has services if I need to access it. And on the other side, residents are looking for more and more care. And whether it's a factor of not having enough long-term care beds, the reality is even with the additional long-term care beds, we still would be significantly short. 60,000 beds are needed in the next 10 years. And it'll take tremendous amount of capital and speed to get there. And I just don't think that is going to be viable even with a lot of progress. and many residents are deciding that they don't want to move from a retirement home if that's the choice they're making. So we're seeing more and more care and we're seeing more senior apartments and we're seeing more care. And the middle of the market, which is called independent supported living, which is neither here nor there, is frankly seeing some shrinkage. So when we are renovating, we are either adding apartments or we're adding more care.

Okay, got it. And then, you know, I'm noticing like in the non-same property pool on the retirement side, you're seeing, you know, healthy lease up. You know, I think your total occupancy now is like just under 90%. You know, if you made no further changes to the portfolio, you know, where feasibly do you think total occupancy lies a couple of years from now? Is it in that 95% range? Do you think that's achievable?

I think 95% is definitely achievable. Could it go to 96%? One could argue, yes, it could. But I think we are in the range where you're nearly there. And after that, we continue to see a lot of opportunities in market rent. And the thing that we don't talk about enough is as homes are more stabilized, it is easier to predict from a staffing perspective. And I think this is where we would also see a lot more efficiency. It is hard to make something efficient while you're also growing it. But when you're getting to the 95, 96% occupancy, the standardization of menus, standardization of PRDs as it relates to staffing, I think will become more and more straightforward. So we do expect that as we get closer to call it full occupancy and whether it's 96% or 95%, we will see a lot more efficiencies behind the scenes and we are actively working on those.

Okay. And then just, you know, like on the joint venture, I'm wondering if you can give like some historical context in the run up to making this decision. I have to think like over the last several years, certainly since COVID, you've probably been approached, you know, maybe about doing something like this before. And then maybe in the lead up to this decision, can you just talk to like How many partners did you solicit? Were there any different structures that you looked at? How did you land on this particular partner, this particular structure?

Sure, I can give you maybe some broad guidelines for us. When we realized that we have a pretty robust GTA pipeline and pipeline in general, we did recognize the importance of a partner. We were very clear that we would only work with an institutional-grade partner. Long-term, so we were not looking for a weird capital structure. We were also very clear that we don't want to be a management company. We want to be owners and operators. So having 50% ownership was important to us and ability to manage was important to us and making sure our values are aligned in terms of building the right product. So you're right, we have had discussions over time, but we were quite clear on what we were looking for. We would rather build less long-term care homes, given a choice between that or working with a partner where our capital structure is not aligned and our values are not aligned. In FIERA, we found very good alignment on capital structure and very good alignment on how we work. So that's why the structure worked out so well. And again, we're starting with these two projects and hope to add more to that partnership.

and you know like it was interesting during COVID we obviously saw some of these institutional partners exit the space and you know I don't know I can't speak whether that was entirely due to internal concerns or you know reputational risk management through through the COVID period. Do you get the sense that these financial partners now sort of have the idea that like This is a long-term business. There will be, you know, some days where the headline risk is maybe not what you're hoping for, but that ultimately it sort of makes its way through, you know, we make our way through to the other side.

First of all, let's not hope for another time like that to run through in general. I think I would say, obviously, there have been headline risk and we have seen some people exit. but there are others who actually did also stay back in the business which is including us and they were capital partners who stayed back. So I think it really does depend on again as we talked about alignment and value. So again it's hard to predict what would happen if you know the world is coming to an end but we believe that this is where institutional great capital long-term view of it you know from infrastructure funds they don't like operational risk which we believe that we can manage well. So there is a lot of alignment to get going on it. And again, as we shared, that we would have liquidity provisions in case of, as you mentioned, something like that would happen. But the reality is both of us are going in with the view that this partnership would exist for a long time.

Okay. That's great. Thanks, Nitin. Thanks, David.

Ladies and gentlemen that concludes the Q&A session and that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.