Sila Realty Trust, Inc. Price & Performance (SILA)

Good morning, and welcome to Cielo Realty Trust's fourth quarter and year ended twenty twenty four earnings conference call. Yesterday evening, we issued our earnings release and supplement, which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.celorealtytrust.com. With me today are Michael Seaton, President and Chief Executive Officer Kay Neely, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Chris Blohaus, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's comments will include forward looking statements under federal securities laws. Forward looking statements are identified by words such as will, be, intend, believe, expect, anticipate or other comparable words and phrases. Statements that are not historical facts, such as statements about expected financial performance, are also forward looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward looking statements. A discussion of the factors that could cause a material difference in our results compared to these forward looking statements is contained in our SEC filings. Please note that on today's call, we will be referring to non GAAP measures. You can find the reconciliation of these historical non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our fourth quarter earnings release and our earnings supplement, both of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website and in the Form eight K we filed with the SEC.

With that, I will now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Seton.

Thank you, Miles. Good morning, and I sincerely appreciate everyone taking the time to join us this morning. Let me first say that I am tremendously proud of the work by the leadership team and all of my colleagues to bring about the results that we are presenting to you today. I am pleased to report an extremely positive quarter to end 2024, capping one of the most eventful years in Sealed's history. Throughout the year, we were prudent and thoughtful in our investing and yet remain very proactive with our existing portfolio, executing over 1,000,000 square feet of lease renewals and extensions for the portfolio. One of the most significant lease modifications was the long term extension of our largest tenant, Post Acute Medical, in the fourth quarter. We also continued to successfully position our balance sheet from both a strength of portfolio and capital perspective. As you know by now, Stila listed on the New York Stock Exchange on 06/13/2024, and I am very proud to convey, outperformed the S and P and RMZ on a total return basis between our listing date in June and year end twenty twenty four. CELA is already realizing the benefits of our direct listing with significantly greater overall market visibility to and analyst communities.

We believe that our increased access to the capital markets and liquidity position will allow for meaningful opportunities to grow and enhance value for existing shareholders and prospective shareholders. Our forward footed positioning starts with the recent recast of our revolving line of credit, with which we realized a $100,000,000 increase in our total aggregate commitments to $600,000,000 Commitments to our facility were oversubscribed by 70% and hence, our decision to upsize the facility. This oversubscription demonstrates the confidence that the REIT lending community has in Seola's strategy, assets and balance sheet management. The size of the facility is expected to allow us to execute on our external growth objectives to enhance the diversity, quality and size of our healthcare real estate portfolio. While the seemingly higher for longer interest rate environment may present challenges for some of our competitors in the market, we believe CELA can use this time to take advantage of existing portfolio and new growth opportunities while others sit on the sidelines. First, the lack of new healthcare real estate development coming online limits opportunities for existing tenants to relocate to new buildings, creating what we believe is a stickier releasing environment. Second, while there may be more discrete limited new construction in markets that are in need of increased healthcare delivery, developers and operators often need to fill a gap in their capital stack of the construction as traditional lenders remain more restricted than in a typical stabilized market environment.

These situations create an opportunity for Ciela to step up and to fill the gaps in the capital stack, providing the necessary funding to allow for the construction and access to an ultimate ownership of the completed property. We took advantage of exactly this type of opportunity in the fourth quarter, executing two mezzanine loans for the development of an inpatient rehab facility and a behavioral healthcare facility in Lynchburg, Virginia, which includes the purchase options at CELUS Election for each facility once they are completed. We believe these loans are an outstanding use of CELUS Capital, providing a mid teens return during the development and funded period and the opportunity to acquire brand new build to suit healthcare facilities upon completion with long term leases with investment grade healthcare sponsorship. We are seeing more types of these types of opportunities arise through our relationships with developers, brokers and some of the largest healthcare operators in The U. S. And we look forward to increasing returns and growing our pipeline with these types of transactions. We remain very enthusiastic about our investment thesis targeting high quality healthcare facilities and strategic locations leased to reliable tenants in a geographically diverse manner.

Beyond the mezzanine loan activity in 2024, we acquired over $164,000,000 of accretive investments, which included eight assets that all fit the anatomy of our ideal property. These transactions reinforce the effectiveness of Ciela's capital allocation strategy and the belief in our long term goals. We believe that the ultimate tailwind, the aging U. S. Population, paired with our 99.9 net lease structure, sets CELA apart from the rest of the REIT space and will allow for outperformance over time by having long, predictable, durable income streams supported by underlying businesses, which are growing. Pivoting to tenant operations. Overall, our portfolio showed improved EBITDARM coverage ratios over the prior quarter and demonstrated an increasing upward trend, and we now have less than 2% of our ABR with an EBITDARM coverage ratio that is less than 1x, down from third quarter of 4.5% of ABR. There were only three tenants at two properties with EBITDARM below 1.0x in the fourth quarter versus six tenants spread across nine properties in the third quarter, a significant improvement quarter over quarter. Also, our overall portfolio EBITDARM coverage ratio for the fourth quarter improved to 5.3 times, signifying, we believe, our tenant's skill in navigating the healthcare operating environment.

Since the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three, we increased exposure to investment grade and rated tenants, guarantors or affiliates to 66.9%. We take an active and engaged approach to continually monitor the financials and creditworthiness of our tenant base, and we are very pleased with the improving trends in our portfolio that we have seen throughout the course of the year. While we were faced with the bankruptcy of two tenants in our portfolio in 2024, Genesis Care and Steward, we successfully resolved all of our Genesis Care exposure by re leasing, leasing or selling all 17 assets owned by us. We successfully resolved the final two remaining vacant properties that were formally leased to Genesis Care in December 2024 by selling one and leasing the other to an investment grade rated tenant for ten years. Our only exposure to Steward's bankruptcy has been a single property located in Stoughton, Massachusetts, which we are actively marketing for sale or lease through a national broker and which we feel confident about the progress. Since our listing, our shareholder base has changed materially, particularly with CELA being added to certain indices, including the S and P total market, the crisp U. S. Total market, the FTSE NAREIT, the S and P completion, the MSCI USIMI Real Estate two thousand five hundred and fifty and most recently the RMZ.

With these additions, we have seen our shareholder base become more institutionally diversified and trading volumes have increased. This momentum should continue as we expect to be added to other indices this year, including the Russell two thousand. We believe that over 50% of our initial 100% retail shareholder base is turned over, which compares more favorably to other REITs that have entered the publicly traded REIT markets in a similar manner to us. I confidently convey to you that the Silas team's hard work paid off with tangible results in 2024, and I am excited to continue to have the opportunity to demonstrate to you that we can carry this positive momentum into the future. Our REIT industry leading balance sheet will continue to be the foundation of our long term success as we search out and find the best risk adjusted returns in the property market. I say with the greatest sincerity, we appreciate all of you who have already joined us as shareholders of our company. We have enjoyed getting to know a large number of you for the first time over these last several months, And we look forward to expanding on all of our existing and new relationship for years to come. 2024 has been a memorable year filled with significant milestones, and our Ciela team is beyond enthusiastic to continue executing on our growth strategy in 2025.

Now, Chris will provide more details on the activity in our portfolio.

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. CELA's twenty twenty four operating results were highlighted by robust renewal demand and improving tenant fundamentals across the board. We executed renewal leases and lease modifications for an excess of 1,100,000 rentable square feet, which represents approximately 20% of our total real estate portfolio over the course of the year, extending many of our partnerships with some of our largest tenants. Although certain leases in the portfolio reset to fair market value at expiration, which in turn reduced the ABR at these properties, these resets were agreed to by us in exchange for longer lease terms with compounding annual rent escalations that will benefit the company in the long run. In the fourth quarter, we renewed all 15 of our leases with our largest tenant Post Acute Medical, extending each of their remaining lease terms to twenty years with no change to the base rental rates. We believe this is a testament to our strong relationship with Post Acute Medical like many of our tenants, demonstrating their commitment to these facilities and our joint investment and the successful operation at these properties. These renewals along with others extended our wallet by approximately one point five years to nine point seven years at year end.

Our wallet combined with our weighted average annual contractual rent increases of 2.2% has positioned Sealy's portfolio for consistent internal growth for a long time to come. Entering the fourth quarter, we had two former Genesis Care properties remaining. On December 10, we sold the Yuka Valley Healthcare facility for $1,700,000 Just days later on December 13, we entered into a long term lease with the Regents of the University of California, an investment grade rated tenant at the El Segundo Healthcare facility. These two successful transactions concluded the selling or re letting of all former GenesisCare properties. The outcome highlights our ability to move swiftly and creatively should there be weakness with a tenant at one of our properties. As it pertains to our former Stewart asset in Stoughton, Massachusetts, we are actively marketing the property and have hired a national brokerage firm to help us facilitate the sale or leasing of that asset in an expeditious manner. At the end of the fourth quarter, our portfolio weighted average lease rate increased 50 basis points to 96% compared to 95.5 at the end of the third quarter, driven largely by the resolution of the final two Genesis Care properties.

After the planned sale of the Stoughton property, which accounts for approximately 3.4% of the square footage in our portfolio, this number is expected to increase to be more in line with our historical level of over 99%. Perhaps more importantly, the strength of our tenancy in place increased throughout the year. Of our tenants or guarantors who report financials to CELA, which accounts for approximately 72% of our in place ABR, we saw meaningful increases in EBITDARM coverage ratios to a weighted average of 5.3 times. All three of our property subcategories, medical outpatient buildings and patient rehab facilities and surgical and specialty facilities realized improvements in their financial results. It is important to note that of the approximately 28% of our obligors that do not report financials, approximately 17% or two thirds of those are associated with an investment grade rated tenant, guarantor or sponsor. In our disclosures, you may also notice that only 1.8% of our ABR comes from reporting obligors with EBITDARM coverage ratios below one time, down from the 4.5% last quarter leaving only three obligors in this category. We are pleased by the direction in which our tenancy is headed and we are excited to continue to build upon these positive fundamentals going forward.

Turning to external growth in 2024, we closed on approximately $164,000,000 of acquisitions, highlighted by the $85,800,000 portfolio acquisition of five Class A healthcare facilities in the first quarter. In the fourth quarter, as previously disclosed, we closed on the two mezzanine loans, one for the development of an approximately 62,000 square foot inpatient rehab facility and the other for the development of an approximately 60,000 square foot behavioral hospital, both of which are 100% preleased to a dominant investment grade rated regional healthcare system and nationally recognized operator. This $17,500,000 combined mezzanine loan investment includes purchase options for each facility at accretive pre negotiated cap rates. As Michael mentioned earlier, we believe an appropriate capital allocation to development funding as we can realize a solid return during the construction period and enhance our future acquisition pipeline with options to purchase these high quality facilities at completion. If there is an option to ownership at the end of a deal structure like these, we will gladly evaluate more transaction like these in the future. Looking ahead, we continue to see attractive opportunities across the continuum of care, albeit not as much as we likely would given the higher for longer rate environment, which we currently find ourselves.

However, relative to the last two years, we do see a pickup in volume and the number of potential transactions that we're able to underwrite, both on and off market. We're still particularly focused on opportunities within the Sunbelt or the Smile States as we like to call them, but we look at all opportunities with strong sponsorship across The U. S. We continue to feel encouraged by what we see in the transaction market today and remain confident that our team will continue to exercise diligence as an active and thoughtful buyer in the market, transacting on opportunities that are expected to be accretive to both earnings and the quality of the portfolio. I will now turn to Kaye for a discussion of our financial performance.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Throughout the year, we executed on many accretive transactions that resulted in positive momentum in our financials. However, some of this was offset by events that took place in late twenty twenty three and into 2024. Our GAAP net income for the year ended 2024 was $42,700,000 or $0.75 per diluted share compared to $24,000,000 or $0.42 per diluted share for year ended 2023. Our cash NOI was $41,000,000 for the fourth quarter as compared to $42,800,000 for the same period in 2023 or a decrease of 4.3%. This was driven by the timing of our net investment activity after the sale of a significant asset in December 2023, as well as sales of property in 2024, the amended master lease with Genesis Care, the closing of the former Steward property and a decrease related to certain amended leases at lower rental rates in exchange for extended lease terms. This was partly offset by increases in our other same store properties of approximately 2.4% over the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Cash NOI was $168,600,000 for the year ended 2024 or 3.6% decrease from $175,000,000 for 2023. This is a result of the items previously described as well as a decrease in lease termination fee income.

The cash NOI decrease was partially offset by a severance payment received in exchange for amending the Genesis Care lease and an increase in same store cash NOI, excluding Genesis Care and Steward of approximately 2.3% in 2024, largely driven by our annual rent escalators. Total same store cash NOI increased 1% year over year. The disposition of a significant asset in December 2023 was impactful to our non same store cash NOI year over year as we deployed the proceeds throughout 2024. As we discussed on our third quarter earnings call, we used the net proceeds of the significant asset sale to reduce the company's variable rate debt, acquire accretive real estate at higher cap rates relative to the sales cap rate and to fund the modified Dutch tender offer that concluded in July 2024, all of which were accretive to the company. Our AFFO was $30,200,000 or $0.54 per diluted share during the fourth quarter compared to $32,700,000 or $0.57 per diluted share during the same period in 2023. For the year ended 2024, AFFO was $131,100,000 or $2.31 per diluted share compared to $132,700,000 or $2.32 per diluted share for 2023 or a decrease of $0.01 per diluted share.

This is a result of the cash NOI items previously described, partially offset by the positive impacts of redeploying some of the proceeds from the sale of the Snifken asset in 2023 to pay down variable rate debt, resulting in lower interest expense, as well as the repurchase of our shares through the modified Dutch auction tender offer. Turning to our fourth quarter capital markets activity, on 12/31/2024, we had five interest rate swaps mature with an aggregate notional of $250,000,000 In preparation of these maturities, we entered into four forward starting swaps on 11/27/2024 and 12/06/2024 with aggregate notional to have $150,000,000 and $100,000,000 respectively. These four swaps were effective on 12/31/2024 and mature on 03/20/2029, coterminous with our $250,000,000 term loan, inclusive of the two twelve month extension options available to us. The maturing swaps had a weighted average fixed rate of 0.93% and the new swaps have a weighted average fixed rate of 3.76 or an increase of two eighty three basis points. While we knew this interest rate reset was coming, we are pleased with where we executed these hedges in comparison to where rates are currently and are expected to be for the foreseeable future.

Subsequent to year end, on 02/18/2025, we closed on our new $600,000,000 revolving credit agreement, replacing our prior $500,000,000 revolving credit agreement that was due to mature in February 2026. The successful recap of this transaction resulting in a significant over subscription allowed us to increase the initial size of the facility by $100,000,000 providing additional runway for CELA to execute on our near term external growth objectives. This revolving line of credit provides CELA the capacity to lever up to our desired long term net debt to EBITDAre range of 4.5 times to 5.5 times, though we may run lower or we may run higher at times through future accretive transactions that fit Silas investment thesis. With a net debt to EBITDAre ratio of 3.3 times at year end, we believe maintaining a strong and low to moderately leveraged balance sheet, financial flexibility and ample liquidity is the hallmark of a strong and sustainable REIT, particularly in the current environment, which continues to bring uncertainty around inflation, interest rates, geopolitical tensions, etcetera. We appreciate our lenders' enthusiastic support and belief in CELA's long term strategy as these partnerships are important to our ability to make accretive transactions and ultimately bring greater value to our shareholders.

On 10/18/2024, the Board approved a change in the frequency of the company's distributions to its stockholders from monthly distributions to quarterly distributions effective in 2025. This change saves the company money and time related to the processing of more frequent dividends and allows us to better align the dividend payments with quarterly company financial performance. On 02/25/2025, the company's Board of Directors approved and authorized a quarterly cash dividend of $0.4 per share payable on 03/26/2025 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on 03/12/2025. We believe that Sealy's enhanced liquidity position and prudent leverage philosophy has set us up to continue to be opportunistic, drive external growth and create shareholder value into 2025 and beyond. I will now turn the call back over to Michael.

Thank you, Kaye. And thank you again to everyone who took the time to listen to today's call. We appreciate your support and confidence in our ability to continue to drive value for you as shareholders in Sealy Realty Trust. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please begin Q and A. Thank you.

Your first question comes from the line of Nate Persett with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. I don't think you guys gave a formal 2025 guide. So it might be helpful for you to kind of just walk through the main side post, I guess, of what we'd be thinking about for this year.

Sure. Nice to hear from you, Nate. Thank you for joining the call today. As you know, and we've spoken to you in the past and others, we don't have a very complicated business. It's a simple business, which we think allows investors and analysts such as yourselves to fairly easily model our earnings. And we've designed our business to be simple to understand, which we think is favorable to new and existing investors. From a 2025 outlook perspective, we've generally said as an indication, we're targeted to grow the enterprise roughly between 7.515% per annum. So our enterprise value today is roughly speaking $1,920,000,000 So that gives you a sense of external growth that we would seek to achieve, I think, if all things line up. From a market perspective, I would have told you in the middle of last year as the market expected more Fed reductions both through the middle at the end of last year, I think the market became very bullish and as it related to possible transaction activity, I think some of that has quelled a little bit as you can probably imagine with the latest outlook given by the Fed as well as by some of the economic reads of inflation.

From a transactional activity standpoint, we're going to be very disciplined. So I gave you some indications of how we'd like to grow the business, but we're going to stick to our knitting to be disciplined and target those assets that we think are accretive to us, the portfolio to earnings, of course. And again, to reiterate, we are focused on long term net lease investments in the right locations with the right tenancy sponsorship. So I hope that gives you some sense of what we're trying to achieve in 2025.

Yes, I think it's helpful. But maybe just like you're obviously doing these kind of loan type things. What do you kind of expect the mix to be this year, I guess, between loans and just straight acquisitions? And how should we think about what the blended rate could even be because there's a pretty wide gap, I think, between the two? So any comments on that?

Yes. And I think that's correct. Just from a loan perspective, as you can tell by the most recent transaction that we did, we were able to achieve kind of on those mezzanine loans mid teens returns during the, I'll call it, funded period. And then of course those transactions have an option to purchase each of those two buildings. As it relates to but loans of course begin and end, right? Real estate ownership can continue in perpetuity. From a volume perspective, we are seeing more opportunities and Chris can speak to this more with the opportunity to fill some gaps in development budgets for transactions. But the vast majority of transaction volume that I think that we will do in 2025 will be acquisition fee ownership. Chris, maybe you can speak a little bit and give a flavor as well for some of the transactions we're seeing. Nate, would that be helpful to you as well?

Yes.

Yes. Thanks, Michael. Nate, good to speak with you again. I think as Michael had alluded to, the transaction market, when you kind of look at on market type transactions did slow a bit going into the end of the year. What I will say is coming into the beginning of this year, our conversations for what I would call and characterize more relationship off market deals has picked up materially. And again, we are going to be prudent and will not grow for growth sake, but we do have a number of opportunities that we're evaluating. We do think that these opportunities come to us for a couple of reasons. One, our strong capital position. Two, our relationships that we have out there across various different property types and owners, operators, developers, etcetera. And three, our track record to close. And so I think when you kind of think about that as a whole, it does present some opportunities. As it relates to the different types of deals, I agree with Michael, it is going to be overwhelmingly weighted towards acquisitions. It is still a mix of medical outpatient facilities as well as inpatient rehab and surgical centers. And we're seeing different opportunities, whether that's smaller portfolios, whether that's other one off acquisitions in the markets that we're targeting.

And again, what we're focused on is lease term as well as the underlying credit of the sponsor guarantor or ultimate tenant. I do think we are on track around acquisitions for the numbers that Michael walked through on a full year basis. We do have a near a very near term pipeline that we are executing that we hope to be able to speak more about in the not too distant future.

Okay.

Maybe just one on tenant health. Obviously, the credit metrics improved in the quarter. Is there anything we should be aware of that's new that could be a credit issue this year or are there any like known move outs that tenants have told you about? So just anything on that would be helpful.

Let me take that kind of in two parts. Let me speak about actually in 2024 from a releasing perspective of existing space, we had actually only one very small tenant leave us. So we had a very high 90s percent renewal rate for our tenancy. We were already working not just on 2025 possible expirations, but also 2026. So as you could see by our results that we displayed for the fourth quarter, particularly with the post acute medical transaction, as well as actually some others that we're working on now, we are very proactive about managing the existing portfolio to push out lease expirations. We think there's a lot of benefit to our stockholders and of course creates that durable predictable income stream. As it relates to we do think we've had an improvement in credit metrics. I think it's reflective of the health care industry doing better each and every quarter and frankly every year since coming out of COVID and particularly really over the last, I would say, twenty four months managing labor issues, managing supply issues for their businesses. And I think that's really what you see because as mentioned, which you note, we only have three tenants in two properties under one times coverage.

And I'll just mention of those three tenants, one of those tenants is a very high investment grade rated tenant. And I will also mention to you that all three of those tenants are current on rent. So we feel very good about the portfolio. In terms of sort of where our focus is, you're asking, I think really about watch list. And we've often said, hey, everything in our portfolio is on our watch list because we're watching all the time. We're very focused on, I would tell you, selling the Stoughton asset. It's admittedly a drag and we've hired a nationally recognized broker and they are deep into the process, sale process and we're pleased with the feedback that we're getting. I think the the push that the team hears from me every day is I would like it sold last week or at least last week. So that's a big focus of ours. I think we've actually had probably a reduction to a certain degree in our most high monitoring as we've gotten of course through, I mean, Stoughton's resolve in the sense that we own the only asset and it's obviously vacant at this time. We've gotten through Genesis Care as we had mentioned.

So our I would tell you from a high monitoring perspective, we've had things kind of improve what I think is dramatically.

Okay. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for joining, Nate. Appreciate it.

And your next question comes from the line of Rob Stevenson with Janney. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Michael, what drove the post acute extension timing? I believe there was still term left on the prior lease. Was this just renewing early or was it something else sort of driving the timing in the fourth quarter here?

Rob, thank you for joining today. It's great to hear your voice. What really drove it, I think was our proactivity. Post Acute Medical is our largest tenant. We have a very close relationship with them at all levels. I've known Tony Mesutano, the CEO for a very long time. And of course, there being our largest tenant, it was 15 separate leases that to each property and benefit from parent company guarantees. And there was a lot of term, I'll say roughly speaking, remaining term was ten plus years. They varied slightly in each case, but it was over ten years. And there was just an opportunity where I think as they grow their business, they would also like more certainty. We of course appreciate that certainty and think it benefits our business and so extended out. So quite frankly, it came about, I would tell you more out of a phone call by us to them saying, would you be interested and then saying, we'd be interested.

Okay. And are these still independent leases or do they get aggregated into a master lease given the timing of the renewal?

They're all individual leases and however, they're also all guaranteed by essentially the parent post acute medical. We get reporting on each and every property on a very frequent basis. Of course, we get reporting and audited financials on the parent company as well. So I would tell you that I think the master lease by the way concept benefited us well through the Genesis Care bankruptcy. But and those are in some ways optimal, but I don't think we're hindered in any way structurally in this transaction as a result of being structured the way it is.

Okay. And then Michael, I guess, as we're thinking about G and A in 2025, you added Chris to the team in 2024. How are you and the Board thinking about any additions of note that you might want to make over the next eighteen months personnel wise? Are you where you need to be? Are there still more senior positions that you anticipate adding to the firm over the next year or two? How should we be thinking about that?

I'm going to answer the broader question. I'll actually let Kay speak a little bit to give you a picture of sort of a run rate G and A as we had some one time events last year, which she can speak to. But overall, we don't expect any ads at the C suite level, if you will, meaning we're staffed up throughout the organization at the mid and lower levels. We're also staffed up and structured to be scaled from a G and A perspective. We believe we can grow from the current $2,000,000,000 to $3,000,000,000 with very incremental adds at the lower level. So these would be folks like not only add one property adding a property manager or property account, but rather adding a number of properties adding say single property manager or property account. And again, those are lower level people, so not too impactful to the overall G and A perspective. Kay, maybe you can speak and answer more directly, Rob, as well as it relates to on a go forward basis.

Sure. Thank you, Michael. Rob, as we look at our G and A year over year and if we remove severance, it's fairly consistent amount hovering a little over $22,000,000 And so I would say a reasonable run rate is somewhere in that twenty two point five million dollars to $23,500,000 range, just given some increases expected, including increases we're currently experiencing and will continue to experience as a large accelerated filer just on the various regulatory front as it relates to audit costs and things of that nature.

Okay. And then, Kate, while I have you, anything in the fourth quarter FFO or AFFO numbers that were non recurring and aren't indicative of a good run rate going forward either positively or negatively?

In the fourth quarter AFFO numbers, we did not have any material severance. We did not have any lease termination payments or other one time items that are large that I can suggest, no.

Okay. And then with the Staunton facility, are you still thinking that the most likely result there is a non healthcare use? And if you do release it, what type of facility is that likely to be you think at this point?

The facility, actually due to Thrillius location has a fair amount of flexibility. So of course, it was previously a healthcare facility leased by Steward. We've had a lot of interest on the residential front because of the location, because of the large parcel of property that it's situated on. There is an existing building there, could be converted to residential, could remain a healthcare facility. In terms of being partial to sale or lease, I think we're impartial. I think we are seeking really the maximum outcome for the company, whether it's proceeds or whether it's a tenant leasing situation. If it's a tenant leasing situation, I would think the building would need some capital, which of course we could in our in a position to provide. But we're I would tell you agnostic as it relates to sale or lease.

Okay. And then last one for me, Chris, where are you seeing the best acquisition opportunities these days among the sort of medical outpatient, the rehabs and the surgical specialty assets, what's sort of looking most attractive to you at this point given where rates are, etcetera?

Yes, that's a great question. No, really, I would say it's between what we're seeing around inpatient rehab, again, across various different operators as well, as well as outpatient medical. Certainly, you're seeing opportunities both kind of on or near campus that really fit our criteria. And what we're always going to be cognizant of is really just the pricing of it. And again, we're focused in on term as well as the underlying credit of that tenant. And so, as I mentioned in my earlier comments, the conversations have certainly picked up kind of coming into the new year after a bit of a slower late Q4. And we do think that there are opportunities out there in both of those different property types. We're also seeing potential opportunities around micro hospitals as well as think about urgent cares or emergency departments or hybrids thereof.

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks.

And your next question comes from the line of Michael Lewis with Truett Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Could you talk about the timing of the two med loan investments as they get drawn down and maybe the cadence of recording investment income, does that start to ramp up in 2025?

Hi, Michael. Thank you for joining today. It's great to hear from you. As it relates to the two mezz loans, we anticipate them beginning to fund in Q1 and to be both fully funded by the end of Q2 twenty twenty five. We will start recording interest income on those loans, of course, as we fund the dollars. So from an earnings perspective, we will see that Q1 and Q2. Those will get funded and then of course thereafter, as we had previously mentioned, there is a senior loan. So these loans will remain outstanding until such time they're repaid either through our purchase or otherwise some other sale or refinance.

Okay, perfect. And then Construction, by the way, I'll just add, Michael. Construction, because I think this is a relevant point to make. Construction is expected to be completed really in about the first half of next year, which is 2026. So as you think about how long was the shortest period arguably we could have these, right? It would be of course that period of time and then presumably perhaps sometime thereafter outstanding earning that interest. Okay, perfect.

Thank you. You noted the fewer operators below one time EBITDA margin coverage and the overall coverage is up, but there was a bigger increase in those between one time to two time. I was just wondering if there's anything notable, anybody's deteriorating a little bit on the coverage side or if it's really just a function of maybe you have some operators dancing around that two time artificial threshold and sometimes they're in and sometimes they're above?

So you hit the nail on the head as it relates to some operators dancing right around the two times coverage. We've got some percentage in there that's right at about 1.952 times, so 1.99 times right in that percentage. I'll also note as folks moved out of the below one times, they went up to the between one and two times. So the between one and two times increased, first of all, as a result of folks moving out of the below one times and then some folks dancing around the two times. And also mentioned to you a little bit of it has to do with when we receive financials and the financials that we're getting. The financials are evaluated on a trailing 12 basis. And arguably that should take away some of the cyclicality as it relates to healthcare. However, as we know, for instance, flu seasons and cold season exists in the fall in the winter months in the fall and in the very early spring of each year. And so if the twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four flu season and admissions were lower than for instance in the twenty twenty four-twenty twenty five, but we're using sixthirtytwenty twenty four financials, those wouldn't be reflected in the same way if we were using twelvethirty onetwenty twenty four financials.

So it's a little bit of that as well. So I think there's a science to reading these charts, but there's also a little bit of art. And so you see it move around a little bit in that manner.

Okay, great. And then I'm going to go all the way back to the first question you were asked, which is there is no 2025 guidance, but maybe you could tell me if this is kind of a fair way to think about it, right? So you already talked about growing the portfolio 7.5% to 15%, more acquisitions than loans funded with the line of credit. You don't have debt maturities. The term loan is hedged. You know what the new rate is. Very low lease expirations, hopefully no credit issues. We talked about the mezz loan getting funded. Did I kind of cover the highlights of the building blocks as we think about '25 or did I miss anything?

I think you did. I think one area of I'll say upside as it relates to operations is the sale or lease of Stoughton. And Rob previously asked about Stoughton, would we rather sell or lease? I mean, a sale transaction immediately obviously takes that off the books. If there was some lease scenario, there can be, of course, a scenario where there could be a ramp up period to capital funding. So I would tell you we're indifferent as to the outcome because we want to maximize for our stockholders. A sale clearly cuts off that aspect of that transaction and the carry costs associated, which are meaningful and I think we've talked about that before. So I think that's an upside aspect, if you will, to our operations. The other thing I would mention two other things to consider. One is from a cap rate perspective, generally in the market, you have asked us this question, what we're seeing. And as you know, we're focused on everything from the MOB space to the inpatient rehab to the specialty hospital space. And from a cap rate range perspective at the lower end, of course, we're going to have MOB at the middle and upper range.

We're going to have those other asset types and we'll bob and weave and seek out the best risk adjusted returns. But that cap rate range is between 6.57.5% overall. And I think we've talked about that range. More recently, it can move around a little bit, but my own view is that we're talking about higher interest rates for longer. My personal view is we have a new normal. That new normal has set in. And in our prepared remarks, and I want to just bring your attention to it, we indicated a target leverage level of 4.5 times to 5.5 times, which is generally consistent with our prior indications. We stated, as you well know, that we're a moderate leverage borrower relative to our peers. It does appear the interest rate environment has reached this new normal I just mentioned, slightly higher than what the market, of course, expected a year ago. As you well know, expectations changed, particularly in the middle to the end of last year and certainly the beginning of this year due to the anticipated inflation rate presumably being higher than the Fed's two percent target rate. So I don't think the market is expecting as many interest rate decreases as they anticipated, let's say, for example, May or June of last year.

So as we think about stabilization of cap rates, again, don't expect big expansion or contraction for what we're targeting, utilizing moderate leverage. We're really sort of giving you more specificity around a view towards when we would raise equity to deliver the balance sheet and that's really at kind of the 5.5 times level. So hopefully that's helpful as well as it relates to your modeling.

Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you.

And there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Michael Seaton for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. We continue to be grateful for all of your interest in CELA. We hope to see some of you tomorrow during the Wolfe Real Estate Conference and in March at the Citi Conference. Have a wonderful rest of the day.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now