Peter A. Scott
Thanks, Ron. Joining me on the call today are Rob Hull, our COO; and Austen Helfrich, our CFO. Also available for the Q&A portion of the call is Ryan Crowley, our CIO. We had a very busy second quarter with excellent results and contributions across the organization. Fundamentals are quite strong in outpatient medical, and that was clear with our second quarter print. Normalized FFO was $0.41 per share, a $0.02 sequential increase. FAD was $0.33 per share, a $0.04 sequential increase. Same-store occupancy was 90%, a 40 basis point sequential increase. Same- store NOI growth was 5.1%, a 280 basis point sequential increase. And net debt to adjusted EBITDA sits at 6x. In addition, it was the second highest new leasing quarter in the last 3 years. Year-to-date sales increased to $211 million at a blended 6.2% cap rate. We have over $700 million of additional assets under contract or LOI. We completed a very successful renewal of our revolver. We extended the tenor of our term loans, and we raised guidance. Rob and Austen will cover these items in more detail. A special thanks to the entire Healthcare Realty team for their extraordinary efforts this quarter. Moving on to our strategic plan, which we published on our website, concurrent with our earnings release. I have now been at Healthcare Realty just over 100 days, and my time has largely been spent seeing the real estate, assessing the team and receiving valuable feedback from our shareholders. During the quarter, the team and I toured 10 core markets encompassing approximately 50% of our overall NOI, and more importantly, about 2/3 of our overall real estate value. In addition, I spent considerable time with our teams out in the field, including leasing and operations. Each and every one of these interactions has had an influence on the strategic plan, and I am confident now is the right time to disclose the vision for Healthcare Realty 2.0. Let me start with my overall assessment. The good news. We have the best-in-class outpatient medical portfolio. We have scale in the right markets, and we are aligned with the nation's leading healthcare systems. In short, we have the essential ingredients of what is needed to be a successful real estate company: Great assets, desirable locations, solid tenants. That said, we have fallen short of expectations despite our solid foundation. Healthcare Realty 1.0 was a transactions-oriented culture that relied almost exclusively on acquisitions and development to drive growth to the detriment of asset management. This strategy worked too, and for many years, the company traded at a premium valuation. Unfortunately, this business model collapsed in 2022, and swift changes are necessary to reverse course and reestablish credibility. Healthcare Realty 2.0 will be an operations-oriented culture where earnings growth is paramount, strong tenant relationships are essential, leasing decisions are made based on economic [indiscernible] and capital allocation is initially prioritized towards accretive reinvestment into our existing portfolio. With that as the backdrop, let me elaborate on the 5 key action items of the strategic plan. First action item, improved corporate governance. As was previously disclosed, we reduced the size of our Board from 12 to 7 directors. The go-forward Board brings fresh perspective and decades of industry experience to support our value creation initiatives. 5 of the 7 directors have been appointed since 2024, and all directors have been appointed since 2020. In addition, 5 Board members have REIT CEO experience. Second action item, a significant organizational restructuring. We have implemented a new operating model that will drive meaningful cost savings and promote incremental accountability at the property level between our operations and leasing personnel. This new asset management-oriented platform will create stronger and better aligned tenant relationships. Over the past few months, I have had the benefit of sitting down with leadership at some of our largest health system tenants to discuss expansion opportunities. These tenants include Baylor Scott & White, HCA, Ascension, CommonSpirit and Banner Health. With our enhanced platform and renewed focus, we can and will do better. To advance our platform changes, during the second quarter, we hired Tony Acevedo and Glenn Preston to lead our asset management efforts. Tony and Glenn have extensive track records in the outpatient medical sector, with 16 years and 25 years of experience, respectively. They have been trusted partners of mine in the past, and they have hit the ground running. Another important restructuring initiative is streamlining our corporate overhead costs. We've completed a thorough review of every line item and have already achieved our initial goal of at least $10 million in run rate G&A savings. 100% of this has been captured through headcount reduction, office expense savings, and of course, the previously mentioned reduction in our Board size. At year-end, Julie Wilson, EVP and Chief Administrative Officer, will be departing the organization after a 24-year career with the company. We would all like to express sincere thanks to Julie, who played a valuable role in the growth of the organization. She will be missed. Third action item, portfolio optimization to maximize NOI growth. We have completed a full bottom-up, property-by-property analysis and segmented all 650 assets into 3 distinct buckets: The stabilized portfolio, the lease-up portfolio and the disposition portfolio. Each of these buckets has different characteristics. Starting with the stabilized portfolio, which is 75% of the total. Ours is hands down, the premier outpatient medical portfolio, and our well-performing stabilized assets will be the primary engine of growth for Healthcare Realty 2.0. The stabilized portfolio consists of 470 properties, encompassing over 25 million square feet. It includes trophy properties on flagship campuses, such as Ascension St. Thomas Midtown in Nashville, MultiCare Overlake Medical Center in Seattle and Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, just to name a few. Current occupancy is 95%, NOI margins are over 65%. Our average lease term is 8 years, and our average escalators are 3%. Our strategy with this portfolio is to maintain high occupancy and maximize lease economics to drive consistent NOI growth. Moving to the lease-up portfolio, which is approximately 13% of the total. These 95 assets contain over 7 million square feet of well-located, health system aligned clinical space. Performance has lagged due to years of underinvestment or deteriorated local relationships. These properties are primarily located within our priority markets, with the top 3 markets of Denver, Dallas and Phoenix comprising 25% of the square footage. We have strong conviction that through targeted ROI-driven investments and engaged asset management leadership, we can harvest meaningful upside in this portfolio and generate up to $50 million of incremental NOI. Current occupancy in these properties is 70%, NOI margins are 55% and our rents are nearly 20% below market. In a bit, I'll touch more on unlocking this potential through prudent capital allocation. Shifting to the disposition portfolio, which is approximately 12% of the total. Over the last 2 years, NOI growth for these assets has lagged our stabilized portfolio by 700 basis points. In addition, 80% of this portfolio is located outside of our priority markets, where demographic trends are weaker, limiting upside potential. We can capitalize on the current strength in the outpatient medical transaction market to strategically exit these assets at attractive relative valuations. Today, we have a robust and balanced disposition pipeline across a variety of asset profiles to maximize value and minimize execution risk. We expect asset sales of approximately $1 billion to close in 2025 at a blended cap rate of 7%. We extensively evaluated the real estate fundamentals of these assets and believe our time and capital are best focused on the lease-up portfolio. The end result of the portfolio optimization strategy will be significantly improved occupancy and margin and enhanced NOI growth profile and a sharpened geographic focus. Fourth action item, reprioritizing our capital allocation internally. Our near-term priority will be investing capital back into our lease- up portfolio. This will come through two different types of targeted investments. Number one, ready to occupy spec suites, which we refer to as RTO, and our strategic investment into select vacant suites to drive leasing. Number two, redevelopment, which are significant investments to reposition buildings and drive higher rental rates, occupancy and cash-on-cash returns. Between RTO and redevelopment opportunities, over the next 3 years, we estimate approximately $300 million of capital investment at attractive returns. Additional accretive opportunities, including acquisitions and development, will come when our cost of capital allows for it or we have sufficient balance sheet capacity. As our balance sheet continues to improve, we could utilize a portion of sale proceeds to repurchase stock should the opportunity present itself. Fifth action item, an improved balance sheet. The company has been playing defense for years with extremely limited financial flexibility due to excessive leverage. With the sale of the disposition portfolio, we expect net debt-to-EBITDA to be in the mid-5x area by year-end. This lower leverage, combined with extended maturities, will allow us to gradually shift from defense to offense. Turning now to the dividend. As a final part of the strategic plan, we completed a thorough and careful evaluation of the dividend. The result of this analysis is that the Board unanimously approved a dividend reduction of 23% to $0.24 per share on a quarterly basis. While we could maintain the dividend and grow into a sustainable payout ratio over time, the key factors for rightsizing the dividend are: It alleviates pressure from $1.4 billion of low coupon bonds maturing over the next 3 years; it provides $100 million annually of capital that we need to reinvest into our portfolio to drive performance; and it positions the company to maximize our go-forward earnings potential. Let me finish with the value creation opportunity. In our strategic plan presentation, we have included a high-level framework for a potential earnings growth over a 3-year forward-looking period. There is a clear path to creating attractive FFO per share, and the analysis excludes any upside from accretive capital allocation. In addition, we currently trade at approximately 10x FFO, which is 6 turns below both our 10-year average and the 10-year average of our healthcare REIT peers. We know our evaluation is a function of many self-inflicted wounds and a loss of credibility and does not remotely reflect the significant value embedded in our irreplaceable portfolio. With the purposeful changes underway at Healthcare Realty 2.0, we see a real opportunity to improve operating performance, restore credibility and unlock shareholder value. With the implementation of our strategic plan, we will remain the only public REIT focused exclusively on outpatient medical. We will have a positive earnings outlook. Our balance sheet will be a source of strength. We will no longer be burdened by an uncovered dividend. We can use free cash flow to invest accretively in our portfolio. Our assets will be operating at maximum NOI capacity. We will have a lean cost structure, and we will have a best-in-class team and Board. We are firmly committed to this vision and are confident it will maximize value for all stakeholders. Nevertheless, over time, if our platform continues to trade at a significant discount to our intrinsic value, then it will be our responsibility to explore all additional alternatives needed to unlock value. Let me now turn the call over to Rob.