Welltower Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 30, 2024

There are 16 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt McQueen, General Counsel. You may begin.

Speaker 1

You, and good morning. As a reminder, certain statements made during this call may be deemed forward looking statements in the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Although Welltower believes any forward looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, the company can give no assurances that its projected results will be attained. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements are detailed in the company's filings with the SEC. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Sean for his remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'll review Q1 business trends and our capital allocation priorities. John will provide an update on the operational performance of our senior housing and outpatient medical portfolios. Nikhil will give you an update on the investment landscape, and Tim will walk you through our triple N businesses, balance sheet highlights and guidance update. I'm very pleased with the strong start to the year as we delivered nearly 19% year over year growth in FFO per share with contributions from all parts of our businesses.

Speaker 2

But I remain particularly excited about our senior housing business, which continues to surpass our expectations. Despite continued uncertainty with respect to the direction of the economy and turbulence across many sectors within commercial real estate, the demand supply backdrop for senior housing gets better with each passing day. We, along with our operating partners, are proud yet humbled to provide an important solution for the rapidly growing number of seniors who make the choice to live in a curated and purpose built environment. And while this demographic demand, end market demand continues to strengthen, the new construction remains extraordinarily difficult, pushing off any impact of new supply many years into the future. In terms of our Q1 results, we posted another quarter of double digit same store revenue growth coming in 10.3% driven by strong occupancy and rate growth.

Speaker 2

While Q1 is usually a seasonally weaker period than Q4, same store occupancy grew 3 40 basis points year over year basis, which represented an improvement from Q4. This is the strongest growth we have seen in our history other than Q1 of 2022 when the comp year was a negative number as we lost occupancy in Q1 of 2021 due to COVID. We also saw outperformance on the rate side. Reported same store RevPAR or unit revenue growth of 4.8% was dragged down by the leap year impact of an additional day in February. However, adjusting for this extra day, report growth remained strong at 5.6%.

Speaker 2

Overall, same store expenses were up 5.7 percent and unit expense or export was up 0.4% driven by same store compensation expenses up 5.4% or just 0.1% on an occupied room basis. Reported to X4 was understated because of the leap year impact and otherwise would be up 0.9%. Regardless, we are very pleased with the underlying trends as unit revenue growth far outpaced unit expense growth, resulting in another quarter of significant margin expansion. And this combination of strong revenue and moderating expense drove same store net operating income growth of 25.5 percent, marking 1 of the strongest quarter in our history. This growth was broad based with all three regions posting year over year same store NOI growth in excess of 20% with growth in the UK reaching nearly 50%.

Speaker 2

From a product standpoint, our independent living and wellness housing portfolios delivered another quarter of extraordinary growth, but our assisted living continued to continued a streak of strong outperformance. And as for our non same store pool, we're even more pleased with the performance of these assets as numerous properties we transitioned within past year have seen a strong improvement in performance, while some recent acquisitions have also outperformed. We continue to mine for opportunities within our own portfolios to effectuate further triple net to RIDEA conversion or operator transition in an effort to enhance the resident and employee experience where we believe financial performance will eventually follow. We're confident that this informational feedback loop created through this continual focus on employee and customer is a long term driver of lower risk and superior operational returns. We don't always get the community and the manager combination right in the first go, but it is our responsibility to try again.

Speaker 2

Status quo is not an option for us. Speaking of conversions, I'm pleased to inform you that we are in process of converting 8 additional well located communities from TripleNet to IDEA. Despite short term drag, we believe this action will be significantly additive to our full cycle stabilized earnings as we have demonstrated in our recent transaction with Legend. These capital light transactions and others similarly made in 2023 will create significant growth for us in 2025 and beyond. Speaking of transactions, the capital markets backdrop remain very conducive to deploying capital.

Speaker 2

Since the beginning of the year, we have closed or under contract to close $2,800,000,000 of investments across 23 separate transactions, including $1,100,000,000 which we spoke to in February, mostly made up of the Affinity transaction. These investments are predominantly with our repeat counterparties or existing operators. As excited as we are about this record level of activity in just 1st 4 months of the year, we remain incredibly busy parsing through granular opportunities in both the U. S. As well as the UK.

Speaker 2

Our near term capital deployment pipeline remains robust, highly visible, actionable and squarely within our circle of competence where we can bet with the house odds rather than the gamblers odds. As rates and credit spreads continue to march higher, our telephones are ringing off the hook as we are requested to provide solutions to institutions, families, operators and other sellers. 2024 will be a very active year for us. While I wrote extensively about our apathy towards entity level M and A transactions in my annual letter, our enthusiasm remains unbridled for tuck in acquisitions one asset at a time, where we can invest at an attractive basis with operational upside and irreplicable uplift from World Tower's operating platform. As we have said in the past, our goal is to achieve significant regional density seeking to grow deep in our market, not broad.

Speaker 2

And with the help of our data science platform, Alpha, we're able to identify one asset at a time, which not only have the strongest growth prospects, but also the strongest fit to our portfolio. Though we occasionally come across sellers who are disconnected from asset value as they appear to be living in a time capsule of yesterday's interest environment or simply hoping that we'll be back there soon, many more pragmatic and smart institutions and families realize that perhaps hope is not a strategy, especially in face of a looming wall of debt maturities for the industry and dark of financing options. We continue to provide solutions to counterparties

Speaker 3

who

Speaker 2

want a sophisticated and reliable partner who shows up at the closing table without a fail with cash and operating partners. We at Welltower are in a handshake business and will remain so. Our stellar reputation is much more valuable to us than few basis points here and there that we may leave on the table. After all, our North Star remains long term compounding of our share value of our existing shareholders, not to maximize a deal or a quarter. In the end, time is the friend of wonderful companies that compound and the enemy of the mediocre.

Speaker 2

With that, I'll pass it over to John. John?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Shankh. Momentum that continues

Speaker 4

to build in our business through 2023 has carried into the early part of this year as reflected by our strong Q1 results. Our total portfolio generated 12.9% same store NOI growth over the prior year's quarter, once again led by the senior housing operating business. First, I'll comment on our outpatient medical portfolio, which remains very stable, producing year over year same store NOI growth of 2% for the first quarter of 2024. Leasing activity remains healthy and our retention rate once again exceeded 90% leading to consistent and industry leading same store occupancy of nearly 95%. The full year same store NOI guidance is unchanged between 2% 3%.

Speaker 4

As for the senior housing operating portfolio, our results remain impressive. The 25.5% first quarter year over year same store NOI increase represents the 6th consecutive quarter in which growth has exceeded 20%. Our top line growth came in at 10.3% driven by strong occupancy growth of 3.40 basis points and strong rate growth of 480 basis points. All three of our regions continue to show favorable same store revenue growth starting with Canada at 9.1% and the U. S.

Speaker 4

And the U. K. Growing at 10.1% and 14.8% respectively. Additionally, expense growth continues to moderate, up 5.7% year over year with the broader inflationary pressures continuing to abate. In terms of labor related trends, we've not only seen broader macro pressures continue to ease, but also our various property and portfolio level initiatives have been paying off.

Speaker 4

For example, by creating greater regional density within our senior housing portfolio, employees are able to fill open shifts at other regional properties, reducing the usage of agency labor and improving the overall customer experience. Regional densification also creates more opportunities for career progression and lower turnover as employees can take increasing levels of responsibility at different properties managed by the same operator in the same region. And equally important, through the build out of our operating platform, we're beginning to create efficiencies which will allow for more time to be spent on resident care improving the customer experience, reducing the administrative burden and related stress on-site employees. Shifting back to the quarter, we reported 3 20 basis points year over year improvement in margins as unit revenue growth continues to solidly outpace unit expense growth. While NOI margins are below pre COVID levels, operating leverage inherent in our business and benefits of our operating platform should allow for multiple years of further margin expansion ahead.

Speaker 4

This year is still young with peak leasing season ahead of us, but we remain encouraged by the start of this year. Ultimately, our Q1 numbers speak to the great work that the entire team is doing. We are relentlessly focused on improving the customer experience and employee experience and we'll continue to pursue operational excellence. Thank you, team Welltower, including our operators, Welltower employees and vendors. I'll now turn the call over to Nikhil.

Speaker 3

Thanks, John. Before speaking to our recent investment activity, I wanted to share some high level market observations. As we have indicated before, we are in a unique environment in which business fundamentals are very strong and at the same time the opportunity to deploy capital remains extremely compelling. In large part, this backdrop is a function of the challenged seniors housing debt, which sits on the balance sheets of the largest lenders in the space. While we have previously spoken about the $19,000,000,000 of seniors housing debt maturing this year and next, a deeper look into the performance of these loans is helpful.

Speaker 3

A great case study is Fannie Mae senior housing debt book with a total outstanding principal balance of $16,000,000,000 It's worth noting that borrowers typically seek out agency financing upon stabilization and so a vast majority of these loans are for assets that were previously stabilized at some point. Of these $16,000,000,000 of loans, dollars 5,900,000,000 are subject to floating rates. But despite that, 44% or $7,000,000,000 of Fannie's senior housing book is considered criticized suggesting loans with high risk of default. In addition, over $1,100,000,000 of loans are more than 60 days past due. While the agencies are the lender of choice for stabilized product, borrowers typically seek out banks for riskier development and lease up bridge loans.

Speaker 3

Unlike agency loans, these loans are almost always based on floating rates and have shorter durations. While granular information is hard to find on the status of these loans on bank balance sheet, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that at least a similar percentage or almost 50% of the $20,000,000,000 plus seniors housing loans on bank balance sheet are showing similar distress. In fact, as I listened to 1st quarter earnings calls, from several regional banks that have historically been amongst the most active in the seniors housing space, I heard a consistent theme of concerns about their sector exposure and the desire to reduce it. This is not surprising given the poor performance of these loans over the last 5 years. Given the staggering level of maturing and underperforming loans, current borrowers are left with tough choices.

Speaker 3

On one side, borrowers can capitulate and accept the ultimate downside of losing a significant portion or perhaps even all of their equity. On the other side, for those with staying power and the right set of incentives to continue to come out of pocket for incremental capital to service and right size the debt load with the hope that some combination of continued improvement in asset level performance and a reversal in the trajectory of interest rates will allow them to achieve a meaningfully better exit value over time. Perhaps unsurprisingly with inflation showing signs of reacceleration over the last few prints and interest rates rising, the hope trade for a quick reversal in the trajectory of interest rates is dwindling and counterparties are coming back to us in droves with the hope of achieving an outcome somewhere in between the two extremes I just highlighted. Given our reputation of being solutions oriented and creative deal makers that honor our original price through the course of the transaction, we continue to be the counterparty of choice for motivated sellers seeking surety of execution and continue to engage with repeat sellers on follow on transactions. During the Q1, we completed gross investments of $449,000,000 comprising $241,000,000 of development funding and acquisitions and loan funding of $208,000,000 comprised solely of seniors and wellness housing property types.

Speaker 3

We acquired 3 seniors housing communities with an average age of 8 years for $168,000 per unit. We also received repayments of $36,000,000 across 3 outstanding loans over the course of the quarter. In addition to the transactions closed in the Q1, we are currently under contract or have closed on $2,600,000,000 of gross investments across 15 different transactions spanning 146 properties across the U. S, U. K.

Speaker 3

And Canada. These transactions have a median value of $37,000,000 As Shaoz mentioned earlier, we are sticking to our mantra of building regional density through focused and granular transactions and continue to grow with operators that are producing strong results for us in these markets. Our recent activity includes incremental new business with our partners at Oakmont, Cozier, Segura, Discovery, Liberty, LCB and Healthcare Ireland to name a few. I'll end by extending a warm and heartfelt thank you to our best in business investment team located across our offices in Dallas, LA, London, New York, Toledo and Toronto. We have been fortunate to be able to hire, train and retain the brightest young minds from leading universities across the country year in and year out while many other competitors eliminated or drastically reduced their teams during COVID.

Speaker 3

We had the foresight to plant the seeds of talent many years ago and are now able to enjoy the fruits from the trees that have since grown. While on one hand the work at Belltower is incredibly challenging, fast paced and perhaps never ending, On the other hand, I believe that the training, opportunity, autonomy and accelerated career growth are unparalleled. The dedication, thoughtfulness and integrity exhibited by the professionals on our team is awe inspiring. I couldn't be more proud of our team or more excited about the opportunity ahead of us. I'll now hand the call over to Tim to walk through our financial results.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Nikhil. My comments today will focus on our Q1 results, the performance of our total net investment segments, our capital activity, a balance sheet and liquidity update and finally an update to our full year 2024 outlook. Welltower reported 1st quarter net income attributable to common stockholders of $0.22 per diluted share and normalized funds from operations of $1.01 per diluted share, representing 18.8% year over year growth. We also reported total portfolio same store NOI growth of 12.9% year over year. Now turning to the performance of our triple net properties in the quarter.

Speaker 5

As a reminder, our triple net lease portfolio coverage and occupancy stats were reported at quarter in arrears. So these statistics reflect the trailing 12 months ending twelvethirty one 2023. In our senior housing triple net portfolio, same store NOI increased 3.8% year over year and trailing 12 month EBITDAR coverage was 1.02 times, which marks the first time this coverage has moved above 1 time since the pandemic began impacting the segment. Next, same store NOI in our long term post acute portfolio grew 3.1% year over year and trailing 12 month EBITDAR coverage is 1.23 times. Staying with the long term post acute portfolio, the Integra Health Care JV entered our same store pool and coverage metrics this quarter.

Speaker 5

As a reminder, the 147 properties were put into a master lease in 4Q 2022 and the individual assets were then transitioned to local and regional operators over the following 5 quarters. The entire master lease enters the same store pool this quarter. The individual assets will enter the rent coverage metrics as they complete 5 quarters of operations under their respective operators. In Q1, 95 of the 147 assets entered our coverage metrics with trailing 12 month EBITDARM and EBITDAR coverage of 1.58x and 1.13x respectively. As we've noted on previous calls, portfolio experienced continuous upward trend in cash flow over last year as reflected in the trailing 3 month EBITDARM and EBITDAR coverages for these 95 assets at 2.23 times and 1.74 times respectively.

Speaker 5

As we move through the year, the rolling forward of last year's positive operating recovery as well as the addition of the remaining transition to Integra assets into our coverage pool should lead to a continual upward trend in our coverage metrics throughout 2024. Turning to capital activity. As Nikhil just walked us through, we have $2,800,000,000 of closed or announced investments year to date, inclusive of the Affinity transaction announced last quarter. In the quarter, we continue to fund investment activity via equity issuance, raising $2,400,000,000 of gross proceeds at an average price of $91.22 per share. This allowed us to fund investment activity along with the extinguishment of approximately $1,500,000,000 of debt in the quarter including $1,350,000,000 of senior unsecured notes and ended the quarter with $2,500,000,000 of cash and restricted cash on the balance sheet.

Speaker 5

Staying with the balance sheet. On the 3rd anniversary of our COVID error leverage maxing out in the mid-7s ex COVID relief funds in the Q1 of 2021, granted this quarter 4.03x net debt to adjusted EBITDA. And we expect to end the year at a target leverage of approximately 4.5x net debt to EBITDA implied by last night's full year guidance update. Consistent with past commentary on the balance sheet, I want to underscore that while our key credit metrics are at historical levels, over half of our NOI is represented by senior housing operating portfolio, which currently sits at just 82.5% occupancy with NOI still well below pre COVID levels. As NOI recovers back to pre pandemic levels, the meaningful recovery in cash flow is expected to drive debt to EBITDA below 4 times from projected year end 2024 levels, further enhancing our financial position and access to capital.

Speaker 5

Lastly, as I move on to last slide's update to our full year 2024 guidance, I want to remind you that we have not included any investment activity in our outlook beyond the $2,800,000,000 to date that has been closed or publicly announced. Last night, we updated our full year 2024 outlook for net income attributable to common stockholders to $1.38 to $1.61 per diluted share and normalized FFO of $4.02 to $4.15 per diluted share or $4.085 in the midpoint. The incremental increase of $0.65 from prior normalized FFO guidance per share at the midpoint is composed of $0.03 from an improved NOI outlook in our senior housing operating portfolio and $0.055 from accretive investments in financing activity, offset partially by $0.01 from higher G and A expectations and $0.01 of near term drag due to a triple net to a day conversion. Underlying this increased FFO guidance is an increase in estimated total portfolio year over year same store NOI growth to 9% to 12%, driven by sub segment growth of outpatient medical 2% to 3% long term post acute 2% to 3% senior housing triple net 2.5% to 4% and finally senior housing operating growth of 17% to 22%, the midpoint of which is driven by revenue growth of approximately 9.2%, made up of RevPAR growth of approximately 5.25% and year over year occupancy growth of 2.90 basis points and total expense growth of approximately 6%.

Speaker 5

And with that, I will hand the call back over to Shankh.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Tim. While we are very pleased with our execution thus far in the year, we're on the cusp of all important summer leasing seasons. So let's see what the market gives us. And while we are proud of our recent operating results we have reported, it's important to recognize that it's not by happenstance. This is not a commodity business with narrow range of outcomes.

Speaker 2

Our results are a function of capital allocation and portfolio management decisions of yesterday. To paraphrase Buffet, someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree long time ago. Similarly, capital allocation decisions of today will drive operating performance tomorrow. So even after nearly $15,000,000,000 of capital that we have deployed since the depth of COVID and hundreds of communities undergoing operator transition, we still have our hands full to optimize location, product, price point and operators on the asset side of the balance sheet. On the liability side, under Tim's leadership, we're absolutely hitting it out of the park.

Speaker 2

A sharp improvement in cash flow coupled with our recent capital raising efforts has driven our net debt to adjusted EBITDA down to 4 times, which represents the lowest level in our recorded history. In the very short term, we maintained significant dry powder with over $6,000,000,000 of total near term liquidity to pursue attractive capital deployment opportunities and fund other near term obligations. In the medium term, we have built significant debt capacity to take advantage of when we eventually get to the other side of the Fed cycle and still maintain an extremely strong balance sheet. Said another way, we don't believe that one's balance sheet should be viewed as an object of vanity, but instead as a countercyclical tool to prudently tap into to drive partial growth. Our balance sheet was one of the 5 pillars of growth, which I articulated during our last call.

Speaker 2

And while I won't repeat all the 5 of those pillars today, I'll just reiterate that our confidence in delivering outsized levels of partial growth to our existing shareholders remain as strong as ever. And while we are fortunate to have a strong multi decade tailwind at our back, just know that we will not settle for the beta of the business. And instead, we're committed to creating significant alpha again for our existing shareholders with the years of compounding growth ahead of us. We appreciate your support. With that, I'll open the call up for questions.

Operator

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Your first question comes from the line of Ronald Kamdem of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Great. Good morning. Just starting with the shop guidance range, guidance range of almost 20%. Looking at the assumptions, it looks like the occupancy and Rev 4 assumptions haven't really changed and it was really sort of same store expense driven. So I was just wondering if you could comment on the Bahamas conservatism is baked into that and any early indication in the peak leasing season?

Speaker 2

Ron, as we have indicated, this is too early in the year. Just as you know, our annual results will be pretty much defined by what the summer leasing season gives us. We have though while we're pleased with what we have seen in the year, there's this healthy level of paranoia in our team. We don't know what the market will give us. We'll report to you.

Speaker 2

Our promise to you remains that we'll get more than our fair share of the market, but we need to see what the market gives us. And we'll update you in 90 days and we'll see where we land. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Malhotra of Mizuho. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Thanks for taking the question. Maybe Shankh and Tim, just can you just talk about perhaps your outlook for underlying FAD growth? FFO was strong, but FAD growth was even stronger in the quarter. Just how do you see FAD trending? And if you can dovetail that into dividend, your coverage is very, very healthy.

Speaker 7

So I'm just wondering how do you use those free cash flow proceeds or perhaps even grow the dividend?

Speaker 5

Yes, Vikram. On the FAD side, we've had this ongoing conversation around this just FAD growth and we continue focused on the long term on the CapEx side, growing an internal or internalizing our capital management team and growing that team has been a main initiative over the last year and a half. And so as we've done that, we've continued to identify value add projects that really attractive risk adjusted returns. So CapEx probably a bit elevated here from a long term run rate, but it is helping drive cash flow alongside of it. And as long as we continue to see those opportunities, we'll continue to put capital to work.

Speaker 5

The dividend part of the question, I'll start and I'll let Shankh add anything. But when we cut the dividend at the start of COVID, we referenced cash flow as being the main driver of our dividend policy. And so that hasn't changed. And so as we sit here today, not only has cash flow recovered pretty meaningfully from the COVID lows, so too is our confidence around the ongoing recovery in senior housing and that was reflected with our updated guidance last night. So consistent with past commentary on the topic and our current financial position, you should expect that our current dividend policy is something we're actively discussing with our Board of Directors.

Speaker 2

I have nothing to add to that.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Nick Yulico of Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thanks. Good morning. Just a 2 part here on the acquisitions. In terms of the $2,600,000,000 closed under contract, can you give us a feel for the 1st year stabilized yield sorry, 1st year yield and then ultimate stabilized yield expectation? And then is any of the distress in the market or the higher interest rates pushing up yields on new investments?

Speaker 8

And then just in terms of the

Operator

funding side, I just want

Speaker 8

to be clear. It seems like you've already sort of raised the equity to fund that pipeline. But going forward, how should we think about an equity versus debt mix for additional investments since you do seem under leverage right now? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Nick, I'll take the first part. So on the $2,600,000,000 it's 100% senior housing and enrollment housing. And if you look at the spot capital markets environment today, it's very similar to what it did in the Q4 as interest rates had run out. So we'll provide more disclosure next quarter as these transactions have closed, but you can expect the return profile to look very similar, both in terms of going in and stabilized yield as what we had in the Q4.

Speaker 2

Yes. Nick, you are correct that we have raised capital to close obviously all the transactions. I want to make sure that you understand that that $2,800,000,000 that we spoke of is not our pipeline. It's the deals that have closed or under contract to close. Our pipeline is beyond that and it remains a very robust pipeline that we think are very near term actionable.

Speaker 2

We'll see where we end up. But that's sort of our view. Speaking of, we are I absolutely subscribe to your view that we remain unleveraged. Our goal is to maximize our stabilized or full cycle earnings. And as I mentioned that you should fully expect us to use the balance sheet, liability side of our balance sheet to drive significant additional partial growth on the other side of the Fed cycle.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Austin Wurschmidt of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the time. With respect to senior housing operators that have changed their strategy by pushing back the annual rent increases into the earlier part of the key selling season, I guess, how does that trend appear to be playing out so far from a retention perspective? And would you expect that benefit to potentially flow through to new lease rate growth?

Speaker 4

Yes. So as it relates to the increases that are going out, it really hasn't been pushed back. People understand what's going on in the cost side of the business. They appreciate the value proposition. And so that has been going very smoothly.

Speaker 4

As it relates to market rents, again, we're seeing robust demand out there. So it's the 2 are related in the sense of obviously the market drives the overall economics, but the it's not that renewals drive the market. The market drives the renewals at some level and the market is strong. Supply demand fundamentals work very well and the value proposition is there.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Hughes of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hi, good morning. Thanks for the time.

Speaker 6

On the increased expected headcount spending this year, can you talk about the investments being made in the analytics and or operations team and the scaling potential to address the capital deployment opportunities? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yes. As it relates to the ops team, we are finding tremendous opportunities to build out that team and do things more effectively, more efficiently

Speaker 3

than are currently being done. That shouldn't

Speaker 4

be a surprise that we can bring operational excellence at our size. And so we continue to lean into that. We're finding that really throughout each of the areas that I'm involved in as it relates to investments on a lot of

Speaker 7

the deal.

Speaker 3

Yes. I think Jasmine, if you think about the sheer number of transactions that we do, but beyond that, everything we look at, to be candid, I mean, humanly impossible to do that without having incredible tools, right? So that what and you've seen a lot of this, but the tools and the capabilities on our analytics team are the only reason we're able to do what we do. And so they are integral part of every step of the investment process from a prescreen to shift through hundreds of buildings to then be able to predict the stabilized NOI for each building under different operators and find the right operator for those buildings, it's integral to what we're doing. So all the investments that we've made are paying off in space.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Juan Sanabria of BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

I just wanted to ask around the seniors housing portfolio and that non same store pool that Shankh mentioned was doing well. Just curious how many of those, I think it's nearly 160 assets are in the transitions bucket not in same store, will be added over the course of the year? And how are those faring relative to the same store pool? And should we expect those to be additive to growth as those are folded into same store?

Speaker 2

Juan, Dave, a lot of these early transitions will eventually come into after 5 quarters. So depending on when they were done, they will come towards the end of the year. You should expect strong growth from them. Whether they will be additive or not, it's too early to say. Probably, they will be similar growth or they will add to their growth, but it depends also remember they're coming up with strong overlapping strong quarters behind them as well.

Speaker 2

What was the other part of your question, Juan, that I missed?

Speaker 10

That was essentially it. Thank you.

Speaker 5

1 on just on the kind of numbers there, the 159, so the Canadian assets that have transitioned, there's about 62 of those that are in transition portfolio. Those transition in the 4th quarter. Those will be those will come back in 2025. The majority of the rest of them come into the pool about 2024.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Griffin of Citi. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Thanks. It's Nick here with Michael. You touched on what's happening on the bank side and on the lending side, but also on kind of the long term drivers and the supply demand imbalance. So I guess, are you seeing more capital that you're competing with for some of these deals, get more interest in the space? And I guess on the flip side, just on development, obviously, we haven't seen starts bounce back.

Speaker 11

Were you starting to see anything from a planning stage or any green shoots of supplies starting to at least be contemplated?

Speaker 3

Yes. Nick, I think the answer to both of those questions is a simple no. We haven't seen any new capital come into the business. And there's really not much capital out there that is not reliant on the debt market and the debt markets are just completely frozen and we expect them to continue to be frozen for the foreseeable future. And that obviously plays into the development cycle as well.

Speaker 3

So we've actually seen the opposite. Rather than folks take on new pre development and new potential projects, folks are giving up on projects that they previously pursuing, just expanding teams and all of that. So to answer your questions.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Joshua Hammerlein of Bank of America. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Yes, good morning everyone. John, I wanted to follow-up on a comment you made on the operating platform and how a big part of the strategy capability and just in general provide more color on this aspect of the operating platform?

Speaker 4

Yes, absolutely. I was rather quiet honestly about it. We're getting very close. There's not a lot of detail updates to give other than we're right on plan right now. As it relates to the types of savings we expect and that we're identifying pretty substantial when you look at how a person starts as a prospect and moves through the process ultimately into the community, reducing the paperwork pretty dramatically, reducing the repetition of input of information because the system is a singular unified system.

Speaker 4

And so all of that reduces errors, it reduces wasted admin time and really enables senior people like the nursing team, like the executive directors and others and sales teams to really focus on their job and leverage technology to drive value there.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Carroll of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Yes, thanks. I guess, John, sticking with you, can you provide some color on the performance of the Cogier PLR portfolio in Canada? I mean, how has that relationship worked so far? And are there plans or discussions to kind of create new PLR relationships kind of build off of this structure in different parts of the market?

Speaker 4

Yes. I'll start with the broader question as far as plans for broader PLR. Our focus is and always has been to drive value from a customer employee perspective and of course from a shareholder perspective. So it's not the process to say let's create a bunch of those types of partnerships. The objective is to drive value.

Speaker 4

In this case, the value is substantial. Our partner, Cozier and my partner, Frederick, are fantastic to work with. That is doing very, very well. The assets have embraced Cogier. The teams have embraced Cogier and Cozier's management and we're very satisfied and appreciative to all the work that is being done there.

Speaker 4

Our expectations are that portfolio will perform fantastically this year. Of course, this transition has occurred during the quiet period. So it's not a lot of activity as it relates to leasing. It's just starting at this point in time up in Canada.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Kammert of Evercore. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Good morning. Thank you. Looks like there's some real standouts on the senior housing side among your larger operators in terms of in place NOI contributions. I mean, Sunrise was up 30% sequentially, Oakmont 11%, StoryPoint 19%, etcetera. And John, you speak to sort of the benefits of densification in regional operators.

Speaker 13

Was such gains in the NOI really driven more by that do you think in best practices? Or was this more of a cyclical episodic to each portfolio in terms of NOI advances, traditional occupancy, etcetera gains?

Speaker 2

We're not going to get on a specific operator level performance on this call, which we never do. We're not going to start that today. We'll tell you that it was a very broad based outperformance from all of our operators across 3 regions. And obviously, that's not as I said, is a happenstance, right? Some of the operating partners you mentioned have done terrifically well for us over a long period of time and that continues.

Speaker 2

But this is a very deliberate strategy that we put together years ago to go deep and not go broad and that as we continue to double down on this strategy. And John gave several examples of how that plays out, whether that's on the employee retention side, their long term career and others. And that also true we can give you several examples how that plays out obviously on the revenue side where customers have different options within a close proximity to each other, right? So at the end of the day, that's what we are trying to do. We believe, as many of us mentioned on the call, that great customer and employee experience eventually drive great financial results and we continue to double down on that simple strategy.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Mueller of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 14

Yes. Hi. Tim, quick question. Was there a change in the same store operating expense guidance for show? Because it looks like your same store revenue drivers didn't change, but the NOI growth expectation increased.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thanks, Mike. It did. So our expense, our overall expense that were underlying our initial budget were 6.5%. So our revised outlook today moving down to 6% change 50 basis points lower.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Pawlowski of Green Street. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hey, thanks for the time. Nikhil, when your team is underwriting new skilled nursing investments, can you give me a sense for kind of the range of EBITDAR reductions you're potentially contemplating in your underwriting for staffing mandates down the line? Yes.

Speaker 3

I think, John, in the skilled business, we are essentially structured credit, short duration providers of capital and we're super focused on basis and incremental projections beyond that. So at the basis we play at, it doesn't really have a meaningful impact just given the downside protection we have. I think this question is probably a better question for folks that play in the equity side of

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rich Anderson of Wedbush Securities. Your line is

Speaker 15

open. Thanks. Good morning and great quarter. It keeps getting better and better. Shankh, you used the word for abundant amount of paranoia in the company, which is good to hear.

Speaker 15

And I want to sort of tackle that side. As parent, I'm sure that you focus not only on the opportunities, which you're clearly doing, but also on the potential risks that can materialize. And thinking of a company like Prologis, obviously, like you, an industry thought leader, but down 21% this year and trading near its 2 year low. How does Welltower anticipate potential pitfalls that may materialize somewhat some of the things that you're thinking about to manage around today to your point about deploying capital and making sure that it produces the end results that you're envisioning. I'm thinking about 25% same store NOI growth and how someone might say why is Wall Street getting rich at the expense of seniors?

Speaker 15

Is there a rent control conversation potentially out there? I'm just wondering some of the things that frame your paranoia and how you might respond to that?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Rich. I said healthy amount of paranoia, and we do and we're constantly thinking, constantly looking over our shoulder to think what can go wrong. Now let's talk about numbers. The law of numbers are very unforgiving, right? When your NOI goes down by 50%, dollars 100 becomes $50 you need to go up 100% to go back to just where you started, right?

Speaker 2

So while 25% NOI growth is impressive, let's just be honest, like and I think I said this in an industry conference few months ago that we haven't made any money over the last 10 years as an industry. So while year over year numbers are impressive, we've got to understand the basic numbers. Just to go back to where we started as an industry, and if I was let's just say it was down industry, and if NOI was let's just say it was down 50%, somewhere down 40%, but somewhere around cut in half and that's what will happen if you lose 20 points of occupancy. You need to just go back 100% to go back to a high watermark. So if you put that in perspective, you realize that obviously the profitability of the industry remains pretty challenging.

Speaker 2

And you can see that in the margins. Margins remain significantly below where pre COVID and frankly speaking the peak of this business was not pre COVID, the peak of the business was 2015 and last call it decade and a half and we're not even close to that. So all these points that you're raising, which are very good points, are very interrelated, like if we can't get to a basic level of margins or that will obviously be driven by basic level of rates and occupancy, then investment, particularly new investment going back to Nick's question on the health plan doesn't make any sense. You need to attract capital to invest in the existing community, doesn't make any sense, right? So all of these things are very interrelated.

Speaker 2

We're trying to do the best we can to provide a great level of service to our community, our residents, our employees. And we also have to put in perspective like a lot of other types of operational real estate apartment stores, single family rentals, which in the heyday have raised rents 20%, 25 plus percent, our rent growth has been good, but it has never been a double digit plus, right? So it's always hovered around 8%, 9%. That's purely driven by rent supply on one side as well as obviously an escalating cost environment. So we feel good about it.

Speaker 2

We will see where we go from here as we are talking about this kind of rate growth. Also I would like you to remember that just on a same employee basis, rates in the sort of cost of employees are up 30%, 40% in last 5 years, right? So all of these things come into play. We're always looking over our shoulder. You can see how we're managing our balance sheet.

Speaker 2

Prologis is a terrific company. It will continue to be a terrific company regardless whether the stock is down in a given year or not. They've created massive amount of value over the years. Stock goes up and down. That's not as managed as we control.

Speaker 2

Our responsibility is to manage the business and look for opportunities to create long term value. Short term, who cares?

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Wes Golladay of Baird. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey, good morning everyone. For that $19,000,000,000 opportunity over the next 2 years, is that a domestic opportunity only? And can you highlight what you're seeing in the UK and Canada? Yes, that is a domestic number we're talking about. We're seeing similar situations in our international markets.

Speaker 2

And one of them, where particularly that market is challenged is U. K. And we're seeing significant opportunities in U. K. And I think I mentioned that.

Speaker 2

And I think you will see us many granular transaction in UK this year to take advantage of that lack of credit, real estate healthcare real estate credit in UK. If it is possible to be worse than the U. S, which is very hard today, it's probably U. K. Market debt market is worse than that of U.

Speaker 2

K. Today. I mean U. K. Debt markets are worse than

Speaker 3

that of U. S. Today.

Operator

Thank you. With no further questions, that concludes today's Q and A session. We thank you for your attendance. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Welltower Q1 2024
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