Opinions
Stephen Takacsy, B. Eng, MBA
Extendicare Inc
EXE-T
DON'T BUY
Sep 24, 2024
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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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.
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.
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.