Opinions
Dean Orrico
Extendicare Inc
EXE-T
COMMENT
Jan 25, 2017
Stock price when the opinion was issued
You might be interested:
Extendicare has a better chart than Chartwell. It has a head-and-shoulder chart movement. If you take into account the general market sell-off, investors need to be forgiving.
How COVID will effect this industry, retirement homes? He owns Sienna instead. EXE is much more involved in government-funded LTCs. Along with Chartwell, these two companies are under government scrutiny, so they likely do a much better job than private LTCs. Good question how COVID will affect these homes: there may be increased costs to manage the LTCs, and he expects the government to do more oversight, particularly the incompetent LTCs. He prefers Sienna to EXE, because Sienna is a mix of LTCs and retirement homes, while Chartwell is mostly retirement homes, which has more upside but more competitive. Don't buy purely LTCs, like EXE.
EXE operates long-term care facilities which require a lot of capital, while CSH is more senior homes. CSH has been divesting lower-return investments to become more of a pure-play. You can charge whatever rent in a market if there's no competition. The seniors' population keeps growing. CSH is paying down debt, which was high a few years ago. In CSH, the easy money has been made, though. It could be a keeper, or take profits.
Focused on LTC in Ontario, also a home healthcare business just in Ontario (which forms 50% of the business). No longer in retirement homes. If you own it, you've done well; continue to hold and collect the yield now south of 4%. If you have strong view of the home healthcare business, you could dip in at a better entry point.
Now nearing the upper end of the valuation range. Looking at the Canadian seniors housing market, you have Chartwell (CSH.UN-T), the largest in the space, and this is in the next tier down. The AFFO multiples are very close, and at the high end of the range. They’ve started to expand into home care which is probably why they have done so well. This is an area where there has been pretty robust margins and lots of growth, with government subsidy. There are better areas where you can get higher yield, and even better valuations with growth, but overall it is a good company to own. Dividend yield of 4.6%.