Good day and welcome to the Sonida Senior Living Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. All statements today, which are not historical facts may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meeting of the federal security laws. These statements are made as of today's date and the company expressly disclaims any obligation to update these statements in the future. Actual results and performance may differ materially from forward-looking statements. Certain of these factors could cause actual results to differ are detailed in the earnings release the company issued earlier today, as well as the reports in the company files with the SEC from time-to-time including the risk factors contained in the annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Please see today's press release for the full Safe Harbor statement, which may be found at www.sonidaseniorliving.com/invest-relations and was furnished in an 8-K filing this morning. Also, please note that during this call, the company will present non-GAAP financial measures. For the reconciliations of each non-GAAP measure, from the most comparable GAAP measure, please also see today's press release. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Sonida Senior Living CEO, Brandon Ribar. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Rob. Hello and welcome to our 2023 fourth quarter and full year earnings call. I'm joined today by Kevin Detz, our Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we posted our 2023 earnings and investor presentation, which will be referenced throughout this call, as we discuss our strategic priorities and operating results, for the year as well as our focus on growth in 2024. You can find our latest presentation at sonidaseniorliving.com in the Investor Relations section, if you would like to follow along. In addition, we've included supplemental earnings information within our investor presentation, consistent with the prior quarter release. Our results in 2023, not only paved the way for growth in 2024 and beyond, they reinforced the strength of our Sonida culture and our collective leadership teams. Our strategic focus on building exceptional teams, across each operating and support discipline, delivering value to our residents and our local team members, and translating those efforts into real margin improvement, through operational excellence resulted in the strongest year-over-year performance improvement in the company's recent history. I could not be prouder of each team member across the Sonida family. We achieved more than 10% revenue growth on a same-store basis, and even more importantly, doubled our adjusted EBITDA year-over-year from $17 million in 2022 to $34 million in 2023, while delivering outstanding care and services, to our residents across the country. Additionally, the company delivered cash flow from operations exceeding $10 million in 2023, a $13 million improvement from 2022. I'm incredibly thankful for the contributions from the entire local, regional, and central support teams. The balance required to increase the recovery trajectory on revenue and margin, complete significant restructuring of the balance sheet, raise additional growth capital, and position the platform for long-term expansion, is reflective of a high-performing management…

Thanks, Brandon. Expanding the discussion around the company's performance and balance sheet, let's jump back to Slide 6 of the investor presentation. Before I dive into the numbers, I want to take a moment to recognize the incredible work and commitment, by the team over the last 18 months. In early '22, the company was at a critical inflection point and having just recapitalized and still working out of the devastating impact from COVID-19. In less than two years, the company has carefully rebuilt its corporate support team and culture, with the injection of new contributors and leaders, to write the next chapter of the company. The company's finance and accounting functions, have quickly evolved from a group of hired contractors, to best-in-class professionals serving as business partners, to our incredible operations team. I am extremely proud of the collective success attained and look forward to continued evolution, as the company executes on its strategic growth plans. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank our business partners and lenders, particularly Fannie Mae and Ally Bank for all their support, creativity, and temporary flexibility, as the company is poised to soon realize all-in cash flow generation. Over the course of the last nine months, we have made incredible strides in addressing our debt and overall capitalization. To summarize, the company temporarily modified its liquidity covenants, under the Ally term loan to provide runway required, to execute a material restructuring of the economic terms in its Fannie Mae mortgages. During the fourth quarter, the company entered into a purchase and sale agreement, to acquire all remaining loans on its protective life portfolio. The purchase price represented a 48% discount of the total indebtedness of $77.4 million. In February 2024, the company closed on this transaction and concurrently financed $24.8…

Thanks, Kevin. 2023 was a transformational year for Sonida. We achieved significant performance milestones, while accomplishing key strategic objectives, and delivering industry-leading care and services, to our residents. These achievements included balance sheet optimization, through the comprehensive restructuring and modification of our debt, and culminating in the $47.75 million equity private placement, that closed in the first quarter of 2024. The operational developments and greatly strengthened balance sheet established Sonida, as a differentiated operator, owner, and investor in senior living, and positioned the company to capitalize on near-term dislocation, which will drive the next chapter of value creation, for our shareholders. Rob, please open the line for questions at this time.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We do have a question from Steve Monroe with Levin. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, guys. Good going. Great progress. I might have missed it, but did you say what your current occupancy is as of today, as opposed to end of fourth quarter?

We did not, Steve.

Okay. Can you disclose that or no?

We can't at this time.

Okay. All right. And any kind of forecast of where you, think it might be at the end of the year, which you're hoping to get to?

Yes, Steve. We're not providing guidance at this time. I think, you know, we are our goal is to continue to see progress similar to, as we did in 2023. So, we think that as we referenced the March increases, came through without any material concerns, around attrition on that front. So, I think we'll be in a position, to provide additional numbers here in the near future just around, how Q1 is playing out as well.

Okay. And then the Q2 acquisitions, or joint ventures or whatever do you're expecting to close in Q2, is there anything in the pipeline for the rest of the year after that?

There's a significant pipeline at this point in time, Steve. We're excited about all the opportunities that, we're taking a look at. So those units represent just things that we have under LOI currently, and that excludes all the other things in the pipeline that we're looking at, for the remainder of the year, as well as the second quarter.

Okay. And then for any acquisitions, do you have any lenders in mind that you're working with, or not that far yet?

I think we have a couple of different options. And so, there are cases where the lenders want to continue to stay in the transaction, and are offering financing from the, that's based on the existing structure. And then we also have relationships with, our existing banking partners and others interested in what Sonida has been accomplishing that are building a relationship, with us that also are offering opportunities, to finance deals moving forward. So it's both seller financing and existing banks staying in, and then new opportunities as well.

Okay. And how did you get your real estate taxes, to go down by a million dollars? That doesn't happen with me?

Yes, I think that was all part of the tactical initiatives that, we rolled out when the new management team got here. And so, that was just kind of a hard scrubbing of all the accounts. And part of what we did was consolidate our vendor relationships and look for favorable pricing that way. And so, I think it was really aggressive monitoring, and even litigation at some point that, ultimately got us all those one-time credits that, will effectively run rate in the form of lower taxes, moving forward in the out years.

All right, well, that's good. That's all I got. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Thanks, Steve.

There are no further questions at this time.

This concludes today's conference. Thank you all for participating.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.