Sienna Senior Living achieves 13.2% same property NOI growth and raises 2025 occupancy target to 95% amid strong operational momentum.

OPERATOR - (00:00:57)

Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Sienna Senior Living S Q3 2025 conference call. Today's call is hosted by Nitin Jain, President and Chief Executive Officer and David Hung, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Investments of Sienna Senior Living Please be aware that certain statements or information discussed today are forward looking and the actual results could differ materially. The Company does not undertake to update any forward looking statement or information. Please refer to the Forward Looking Information and Risk Factors section in the Company's public filings, including its most recent MD&A and AIF, for more information. You will also find a more fulsome discussion of the Company's results in its MDA and financial statements for the period, which are posted on SEDAR plus and can be found on the Company's website, siennaliving.ca. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be available. Instructions for accessing the call are posted on the Company's website and the details are provided in the Company's news release. The Company has posted slides which accompany the host's remarks on the Company website under Events and Presentations. With that, I will now turn the call to Mr. Jain. Please go ahead Mr. Jain.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:02:20)

Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. The third quarter set the stage for a strong finish to this year. There's positive momentum across every part of our company. We achieved strong operational results in both. Lines of our business, successfully completed two development projects in Ontario and continue to grow through acquisitions. We are on track to make 2025 a year that marks the next stage. Of Ciena's growth journey. Both operating platforms delivered strong results in the third quarter. Same property NOI increased by 13.2% in. The retirement segment and by 6.7% in long term care. Key drivers of the double digit increase. In the retirement segment were a strong. Occupancy increase, rental rate growth as well as higher care revenue. Average same property Occupancy was up 230 basis points year over year and has reached 94.1% in the third quarter. Following the quarter, monthly occupancy increased to 94.7% in October, putting us well on our way to achieve a 95% target by the end of this year. Our results also reflect an increase in care revenue. We increasingly apply our expertise in clinical care at our retirement platform which allows residents to stay with us longer as their care needs change. Additional Key drivers behind the strong performance in our retirement segment are a robust sales platform and focused marketing campaigns. Our call center leads remain high and the number of tours in our properties have significantly increased each quarter. This year our Q3 leads have increased by 37% year over year compared to the same period last year and we are also encouraged by the results of a recently hosted national open house. In October we generated a much stronger double digit increase of new leads compared to our previous event in July. In addition, we maintain a robust focus on hospital outreach and excellent relationships with healthcare and business partners in the communities we operate in. All of these initiatives are expected to drive increasing lead generation and future movements beyond the strong same property performance and retirement segment. We are pleased with the results of our optimization efforts in 5 of our properties. Occupancy increased by 970 basis point year over year in Q3 in the optimization portfolio and supported NOI growth of over 40%. Our initiatives to better position these assets within the local markets are clearly delivering results with respect to our long term care operations, Our fully occupied homes with growing wait lists, high revenue from private accommodations and annual government funding increases all added to the strength of our results. Our government funded long term care operations add significant value to our business as they provide stability and are largely insulated. From market volatility or economic uncertainty. In the coming quarters we will also start to see the contributions from our recently opened redevelopment projects moving to slide 6 in September we opened our redeveloped long term care community in North Bay followed by a campus of care in Brantford in October. These large scale projects are complex, require deep expertise and trusted partnerships and we are especially proud to have delivered them on time and on budget. Once fully stabilized, each of our long term care redevelopment is expected to grow Ciena's AFFO per share by about 3% with long wait list. We expect to see the homes to. Be fully occupied within 60 days after they open. We are also on track to complete. Our next redevelopment project in Keswick in 2027. With respect to our development pipeline, we are encouraged by the funding improvements announced by the Ontario government this summer. Improvements for projects in the Greater Toronto area are especially important to us given that over 80% of our remaining redevelopment. Pipeline is in fact in the GTA. As a result of these improvements, we expect to start construction of one to two projects next year. Since the beginning of the year we have also been very active on the acquisition front. The majority of the properties we acquired in 2025 are less than 10 years old and are strategically located in large urban centers. During the third quarter we strengthened our footprint in the Greater Toronto area with the addition of of a previously announced 133 suite retirement residence and 192 bed long term care home since the end of the quarter. We are also entered into two additional acquisition agreements in Ontario. Last week we signed a purchase agreement for Highgate On Lexington, our 216 suite retirement residence in the City of Waterloo. We will acquire the property in this desirable market for approximately 93.3 million. Highgate also includes a 4.7 acre development. Site which is zoned for a retirement residence or residential condominium. Two days ago we signed a purchase agreement for LaSalle Park 123 suite retirement residence in Burlington, a suburb in GTA. We will initially acquire a 78.2% interest in the property for approximately 67.2 million, followed by an additional 10.9% in January 2026 and the final 10.9% in five years. This is our third high quality acquisition in the Greater Toronto area this year. Where we already have a significant presence. And continue to build scale. Collectively, we have added over $800 million of assets through acquisitions and developments to our platform in 2025 and our pipeline continues to stay very strong. Investing in Our Team Members as we grow and scale our operations investing in our team members is fundamental to the success of Sienna. With over 15,000 employees, we recognize the importance of programs focused on learning and development, leadership skills, recognition and rewards, all designed to attract and retain our highly engaged workforce. The positive impact of these initiatives is reflected in our most recent employee Engagement survey which was completed in September. The participation rate reached an all time high of 86% and the team member engagement score rose for the fifth consecutive time. We're extremely proud of this achievement which is crucial for the continued success of Ciena. Our investment in our team members was also recognized by Time Magazine who named Ciena one of Canada's best companies in 2020. With that, I'll turn it over to David for an update on our financial results.

David Hung - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Investments - (00:09:30)

Thank you Nitin and good morning everyone. I will start on slide 10 for financial results in my commentary. In accordance with our MDA disclosure, I will make reference to our operating results. Excluding one time items in Q3 2025, revenue on a proportionate basis increased by 16.4% year over year to $261.7 million. This increase was largely due to occupancy and rental rate growth as well as increased care revenue in the retirement segment. Adding to the increase were the contributions from our long term care platform, including higher flow through funding for direct care, higher private accommodation revenue and additional revenue from acquisitions completed in 2025. Same property NOI increased by 9.7% to $46.4 million in Q3 2025, including by 13.2% in our retirement segment and by 6.7% in the long term care segment. In the retirement segment, same property NOI increased by $2.6 million in Q3 2025 compared to last year, largely as a result of improved occupancy and rate growth. These improvements, in addition to generating higher care revenue and maintaining a strict focus on operating expenses, supported the year over year 220 basis point improvement of our same property operating margin. In addition, we are making good progress with respect to our asset optimization initiatives which includes five assets in the company's retirement portfolio. Q3 NOI in the optimization portfolio increased by over 40% year over year with an average margin increase of approximately 540 basis points compared to the same period in 2024. In the Long Term Care segment, NOI increased by $1.5 million. Fully occupied homes with growing wait lists and continued improvements in private occupancy supported the year over year growth. During Q3 2025, operating funds from operations increased by 33.3% to $31.8 million compared to last year primarily due to higher NOI. Adjusted funds from operations increased by 36.1% to $27.7 million compared to last year. The increase was mainly due to higher OFFO offset by an increase in maintenance capital expenditures on a per share basis. OFFO and affo increased by 9.6% and 12% respectively in Q3 2025. Our Q3 2025 AFFO payout ratio was 78.7% and compared to 91.3% in Q3 2024. This significant improvement highlights Ciena's strong operating results and our successful initiatives of deploying capital we raised to fund our growth in the coming quarters. We also expect to see contributions from our recently completed redevelopment projects reflected in our affo. Each redevelopment is expected to contribute on average an additional $4.7 million to to Ciena's annual AFFO once it is fully operational. This represents an approximate 3% increase in AFFO per share for each project. In addition, these projects will enhance our balance sheet and further elevate the quality of our asset pool. Throughout the third quarter, we maintained our strong financial position and balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $464 million of liquidity and $1.3 billion of unencumbered assets. On August 21, we issued $175 million in unsecured debentures at an interest rate of 4.112% to finance our growth initiatives. The significant demand for the debenture resulted in the offering being multiple times oversubscribed. With respect to Ciena's upcoming debt maturities, including the maturity of our $175 million Series B unsecured debenture in Q1 2026. We have multiple attractive financing options available to us. With that, I will turn the call back to Nitin for his closing remarks.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:13:41)

Thank you, David. Our disciplined approach to enhancing our operations is clearly reflected in our results. Combined with our success in growing through acquisitions and developments, it reinforces our confidence and outlook for Ciena both in the near term and in the years ahead. We are on track to end the year with same property occupancy of 95% in the retirement segment ahead of our original Q1 2026 target. In line with strong year-to-date. Performance, we also updated our same property NOI growth targets. In our retirement segment, we expect same property NOI to increase between 13 to 14% year over year. And in long term care, we anticipate year over year NOI growth of 4% or 5% in our same property portfolio. Our company is at the beginning of. An exceptional growth phase. Supply is expected to remain constrained in the foreseeable future while demand and operating fundamentals continue to strengthen. With our growing scale and the support. Of our highly engaged team members, we Believe that we have a tremendous opportunity to generate sustained growth for many, many years to come. On behalf of our entire team and our board of directors, I want to thank our shareholders and for all of you on this call for your continued support. Sarah, we are ready for questions.

OPERATOR - (00:15:04)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press Star one again. Please ensure that your phone is not on mute when called upon. Thank you. Your first question comes from Jonathan Kelcher with T. Cowan. Your line is open.

Jonathan Kelcher - Equity Analyst - (00:15:26)

Thanks. Good morning. First question just on the operations front. Looks on the retirement side. Looks like you are sort of hitting it out of the ballpark a little bit here at 95, hitting the 95%. What should we think about going forward in terms of rent growth once you sort of meet that target?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:15:51)

Thank you, Jonathan and good morning. We expect our rental growth to be in the range of 4% to 5%, which is combination of annual escalations. Plus there would be some opportunity to in fact look at market rents again when you are running at those high Occupancy. And even though your question was not about margin, Around margin, once we, we have said before that once you get to that higher margin, a lot of that revenue will continue to fall on the bottom line. So the NOI growth, rental revenue will be a part of it, but there will be multiple other levers which will drive the NOI growth.

Jonathan Kelcher - Equity Analyst - (00:16:27)

Okay, fair enough. And then just secondly on the acquisitions, could you maybe give a little bit more color on LaSalle Park just in terms of like the remaining 22%. Is that pricing set? Do you see a lot of Runway for rent growth there? Like the 5.75% cap rate is a little bit on the low side for what you guys have been buying in retirement.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:16:58)

Yeah, no, thanks for that question, Jonathan. So just in terms of the structure, we are buying 78% now at $67.2 million. We're going to buy another 10.9% in Q1 of 2026 also at the same price that we're buying now. So it would be at 100%. The value would be $86 million. And then five years from now, it would be at the fair market value at that time. And we'll have some predetermined metrics for how we calculate that. I think that in terms of rental rate growth, you know, it's going to be similar to what Nitin said. We see opportunity in the range of 4 to 5% rental rate growth within that market. And a lot of that will also fall to the bottom line and expand the margins within that property.

Jonathan Kelcher - Equity Analyst - (00:17:52)

Okay, thanks. I'll turn it back.

OPERATOR - (00:17:58)

The next question comes from Himanshu Gupta with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Himanshu Gupta - Equity Analyst - (00:18:05)

Thank you and good morning. So first on long term care, what led to NOI growth here? I mean, I know you have been guiding to around like 2% growth and we got like 4 to 5% in the year so far. So is there like a margin expansion story in LTC as well?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:18:27)

Yeah, it's a couple of factors. One is higher funding from all three provinces in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. and that has run a little bit higher than our increase in expenses. The second is around preferred revenues. So we have been driving growth through filling in our beds with residents who pay private accommodation rates. And then there is a little bit around the acquisition of Nicola. We did buy that earlier in the year. So that's contributing moderately to the growth in long term care noi.

Himanshu Gupta - Equity Analyst - (00:19:09)

Okay, okay, fair enough. And I mean, sticking to ltc, but on the developments, Brantford and North Bay is complete now. When do you start receiving construction funding? And when will you start, you know, reflecting that in the financials? And I guess it will be like a breakdown between like interest income and contribution to asfo.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:19:37)

That's right. So CFS funding starts when the building is open. And in the case of Northern Heights, we opened the building and had our first welcomed our first residents on September 7th. So CFS started flowing on September 7th, and then Oakwood Commons, which is in Brantford, opened up in October, and that's when the CFS would start flowing at that time. So we've actually already started seeing a little bit of the CFS flowing through in Q3. We're going to see the full impact of that, at least for Northern Heights in Q4. And then Brantford would be Q1 in terms of the breakdown of the CFS. We've actually disclosed that in our MD and A. So out of the $3.3 million, around 2.2 million would be interest income and the other 1.1 million approximately would be an add back to our AFFO.

Himanshu Gupta - Equity Analyst - (00:20:30)

Okay, very helpful. My last question is on the retirement home side. I mean, I think Nitin, Obviously you mentioned 4 to 5% kind of rental growth. And if I look on the expenses size in probably expenses, I think they were up like 3 to 4% in 2025 so far. Is that a good run rate for expenses for Q4 and beyond?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:21:00)

Yeah, I think that's a good assumption. What you just talked about, about the rental growth and expense growth, one of the things that we have, you know, the one idea which most people talk about is how more of it falls to the bottom line. The second part is when homes are stabilized, first of all, we use very less incentives. Our incentives around 1 to 2% of revenue, but our ability to remove those, that definitely helps. And also from an expense perspective, when you have consistency in the number of residents in the home, you can become a lot more consistent in scheduling and other things which also drive down costs. So as a starting point, the assumptions you have talked about, Himanshu, are not unreasonable, but we do expect an opportunity to, in fact drive them lower from expense perspective.

Himanshu Gupta - Equity Analyst - (00:21:50)

Okay, very helpful. Maybe just the last, last question here. On the retirement home occupancy, I think you mentioned Q3 leads were up like double digits, if I heard it correctly. So doesn't look like, you know, occupancy is going to stop here at like 95. Is that a fair assumption given how the leads are coming in and you still have more opportunity to wrap it up?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:22:16)

Yeah, I mean, that is a fair assumption. Out of our 44 homes, roughly 25% of them up close to 100%, if not 100% and then the other are call it 95 to 98%. So we're not, it is not unusual to see really high occupancy at a portfolio basis. It remains to be seen what can be sustainable. And I think the idea that it should not stop at 95% is, you know, that's not unreasonable. I think what remains to be seen whether it'll go to 98 or would the next number be 96% but I think that remains to be seen as an industry.

Himanshu Gupta - Equity Analyst - (00:22:53)

Okay, awesome. Thank you guys. And I'll turn it back. Thanks so much.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:22:57)

Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:22:59)

The next question comes from Seram Srinivas which with Core Mark Securities. Your line is open.

Seram Srinivas - Equity Analyst - (00:23:07)

Thank you operator. Good morning David. Just looking at the redevelopments you guys completed, how should we be thinking about the stabilization timeline over here? And you know, I know like residents have been coming in. So when does the. So should we look at probably 12 months when it's 98% or 99% occupied?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:23:26)

Thank you. One of the things that which is not well understood is really how well the long term care redevelopment works, especially after the government funding. So David mentioned on September 7th we opened our North Bay properties. On day one you get fully funded and the expectations from the government is that you will be fully leased up within 60 days. And we are fully leased up in North Bay in 60 days. The Brantford opened in October and we get full funding on day one and it would be fully leased up in 60 days. So in fact there is no lease lease up in long term care in Brantford, We also have a campus of care which has retirement home attached to it and that is also leasing quite well.

Seram Srinivas - Equity Analyst - (00:24:09)

And nitin, when it comes to Brantford, you know, it's a mix of both retirement and LTC over there. How does the funding work? Like I said, are governments more incentivized to actually provide funding for these kind of projects?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:24:23)

So government funding is dedicated just to long term care. And there is a whole mechanism to ensure your expenses, capital expenses are properly allocated just to long term care. Your operational expenses are properly allocated just to long term care. And we have many other campuses and there are a few others who have campuses. So this is well established space in the industry.

Seram Srinivas - Equity Analyst - (00:24:49)

That makes sense.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:24:50)

And maybe my last question around acquisitions, obviously you guys have been pretty active both in the retirement as well as LTC space. When you look at the headlines right now, you do see a lot of infrastructure Funds as a private players looking into these kind of assets. So when you compete in the market right now, are you seeing a lot more of these private funds come in or like what's the competition like?

Seram Srinivas - Equity Analyst - (00:25:11)

Absolutely.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:25:12)

And senior living has been a quite competitive space. One of the key factors for us is we know how to operate them is not just a pure rental business. Operations are complex. And the fact that we have 15,000 employees, I mean that might be all the real estate companies combined, just the nature of the work that we do. So one of the things that works in our benefit is really understanding the complexity of operations and driving synergies out of it. And this is also a very relationship focused business. Even though we all compete with each other, a lot of the sector has been around for a while. Relationships are important in this space. And usually when someone is selling, whether it's generational or whether it's, you know, they built it and they want to sell, they want to make sure that they're selling it to people they know can close on a timely basis. And because it has a lot high number of team members and residents involved, they want to make sure it gets to the right place. So all those things play. And I think instead of me saying that we have been quite successful, you can just look at the numbers. We have been quite successful in getting these acquisitions and closing them.

Seram Srinivas - Equity Analyst - (00:26:21)

No, that makes sense. Sorry. I guess one last from me, you know, you obviously mentioned these are operationally intense businesses and one huge part of that is labor costs. As you get into 26, do you see any bottlenecks from that perspective and what are the challenges that might come up from the talent sourcing perspective? You're talking about labor perspective.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:26:40)

It's Sarah. Yeah, so I would say it's, you know, the industry as a whole has got better from a labor perspective. Immigration helps significantly. Five years ago we made a major pivot on the whole idea of you take care of your team, they'll take care of your customer residents and business will take care of itself. As simple as it sounds, that has had tremendous outcome for us. In last two years our turnover is down by 60%. 6 0. So we are hiring lot many less people. People are staying much longer. And that helps not only from a labor perspective. In retirement homes, helps us drive occupancy residents get comfortable. They refer us more in long term care. It's driving less compliance issues, less quality issues. Residents are happy. So we are seeing massive improvements in labor front. And other than some very hard to. Fill areas, we in fact have no Vacancies across our portfolio.

Seram Srinivas - Equity Analyst - (00:27:42)

That's great, Colin, and thank you. I'll turn it back.

OPERATOR - (00:27:45)

Thank you.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:27:46)

The next question comes from Juliano Thornhill with National Bank Capital Markets. Your line is open. Hey, guys. Good morning, everyone. I'm just wondering what led to the big occupancy uptick in your same property portfolio in August. So thank you.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:28:06)

Julianna. We have been working. The strategy has been the same. We are very, very local. The relationship with the hospitals, the relationship with other healthcare providers, word of mouth, all of those things are important and. It is not, frankly, rocket science. The idea is to ensure you have a set of processes and you want to make sure you get done. So the approach we're taking is, is not to come up with new programs, but be disciplined on the things that we have and to do them well on a regular basis. That applies to a call center. That applies to how we follow with leads. That applies to the sales cycle. And we are seeing good results with it up front and we do expect that to continue.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:28:48)

Okay, so just like, yeah. On the retirement portion, is that like localized to geography at all or like specific to a couple of properties or is it more just broad based?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:29:00)

The occupancy gains is broad based. So it is not that one home increased occupancy significantly and that moved the needle. It is. We are seeing a consistent increase across majority of our portfolio.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:29:14)

Okay, and then just another question, just on the capital funding program announced by the government last quarter, I'm wondering if that, I guess, revised funding program has led you to consider or improve the ability to pursue your GTA properties. Your class C GTA properties.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:29:37)

It is, Julianna. So we, you know, we've been studying the new program with great interest. 80% of our properties are within the GTA. And this program significantly improves the funding within the GTA. We're currently completing some of the analysis in terms of which projects would it make sense to proceed with? But our intention would be to proceed with one to two projects in 2026 within the GTA.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:30:09)

And how are you deciding on which ones to pursue within the gta? Is it mostly based on how are you factoring, I guess, the land costs into that decision?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:30:23)

So one of the things which is quite unique about us is that we own quite a bit of land in GTA which is usually the most difficult to find. And we have been working on these projects for three or four years because the planning process is quite long. So we have had four projects roughly that we have been nudging along with the intent that one day the there would be an appropriate funding and that time has come. So these projects will be defined. Where are they in the planning cycle, what the returns are, which one are operationally have the biggest impact. So for example, we have a couple of homes which will not only solve and build capacity for that site, but in fact would help us decant another home so we can move all the residents there. So all of those things will go into play. These projects will be bigger than the 160 beds that we have seen in the past. So we would see a material impact of those projects once they're completed. Okay, thanks.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:31:15)

And then just my last question just on the atm, how are you guys thinking about that as a funding source? Are you going to anticipate be quite active on that or are you going to be leaning more on your on the debt markets for liquidity going forward?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:31:30)

That's a good question, Juliano. So in Q3 we did issue 1.3 million shares under our ATM at an average price of $18.13. We've been quite disciplined in terms of the use of our atm. We'll consider all forms of capital when we, you know, are looking at acquisitions or redevelopment. So we did issue about $24 million on our ATM this quarter, but we also did $175 million in the unsecured debt market because of the attractiveness of of the cost of capital there to fund our acquisition. So really we're looking at both. But as it relates to the atm, we want to make sure that we have specific uses for it as we're issuing shares.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:32:17)

Okay, thanks guys.

OPERATOR - (00:32:21)

The next question comes from Pami Beer with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Pami Beer - Equity Analyst - (00:32:29)

Thanks. Good morning. Just coming back to the La Sal acquisition. You're buying a non managing interest at a lower cap rate than what you've done in the past. What made this deal attractive to you versus maybe others in the market? And are there maybe more of these that you expect to do with this vendor?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:32:50)

Thank you Pami and Good morning. So LaSalle park is owned by Reichman Senior Housing. We have had a very successful partnership with them, Elgin Four Falls. We build that home together. They manage for a period of time and then we will buy that. The 5.75 cap rate is in fact not that unusual for really good properties. LaSalle park is, when I say it's fully occupied, I mean it's not 95, it's closer to 100% occupied. They have strong rental growth. The home is built extremely well. So it will stand the time of competition and we continue to see good occupancy growth over time. In this case, it was the interest of the seller to manage it. And considering that we have a relationship and we are comfortable with their management, you know, that worked for us. But from a return perspective, we think we will do extremely well in this opportunity.

Pami Beer - Equity Analyst - (00:33:45)

And then I guess. Okay, you mentioned Elgin Falls as well. So is there, you know, are there more of these within their perhaps pipeline that you might do as part of your acquisition program over the next year or so?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:33:59)

Yeah, I hope if they ever decide to do more that they will think of us again. I do not know their strategy. Obviously they have been in this space for a long period of time and I don't think they are expecting to exit it. This is a one off opportunity where there were other partners involved and they wanted to sell. And if they have another one, we are, we are hoping that they will consider us first.

Pami Beer - Equity Analyst - (00:34:21)

Okay. Then just lastly on the additional care revenue, I think you mentioned that a few times. In terms of the source of some of the growth, can you just expand on what new services are being offered or is it really just an increase in the volume of maybe the same services that are being offered? I'm just curious if you have a sense of what the growth rate in your service revenue growth has been maybe on a year to date basis relative to where it was versus last year.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:34:53)

Absolutely. I think this is frankly would be one of the big difference maker for us at Ciena because we are not shy about providing care and I would say we are quite good at it. So the expertise that we have in long term care is how do we use that in retirement and not only provide provide more care but also do it at a price where residents can afford it. So we recently made the change. Jennifer, who led our long term care, we moved her to retirement with the intention of how do you add the right care services to our retirement living. So the one would be increasing our care services and we are seeing more and more demand for assisted living and memory care. So that would be one second we. Looked at pricing of our care. So for from 2022 to 2024 our care hours went up significantly but they were not adding much to the bottom line. We were not pricing it correctly and we were also not having the. We also didn't have the right structure to make sure we can be more efficient. So we have fixed that this year. It is a multi year strategy because you don't want a big shock to the system if someone is paying $100, you don't want to change the price to 300. So we will do that over time. So that would change and then we. Continue to think about how do we bundle services which are in the best interest of U.S. team members and residents. And we will do that. So I would say it will be a combination of all of those things. And that's why when Jonathan asked the question on just rental rate growth, I think that would be one part of our growth strategy. The other, frankly is going to come from care services.

Pami Beer - Equity Analyst - (00:36:26)

Is the care service revenue growing at a faster rate than that blended 4 to 5% that you mentioned?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:36:35)

Absolutely. I mean those, the expenses are also a bit higher there. So those numbers grow faster. The care revenue is growing significantly faster than anything else. I mean it started at a low base, but high double digit is not, is the number that had grown in. The last few years. And we expect that to continue on. There's a shortage of long term care beds in every province we are in. Residents need more care. Hospitals are full and the right place for residents who do not need long term care should not be in hospital, they should be in a retirement home. And the idea is how do we make that possible?

Pami Beer - Equity Analyst - (00:37:13)

Right. Okay, so a lower margin but higher volume growth in that piece of the business.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:37:21)

Yes.

Pami Beer - Equity Analyst - (00:37:22)

Okay, that's all I have. Thanks so much.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:37:26)

Thank you, Pami.

OPERATOR - (00:37:28)

The next question comes from Tal Woolley with cibc. Your line is open.

Tal Woolley - Equity Analyst - (00:37:35)

Hi, good morning. I joined late, so if some of the stuff's been answered, please tell me to go look at the transcript. I'm just curious how you see acquisition pricing playing out over the next, over this next couple of years. I think for the last five years anytime we've talked about retirement assets, basically the going on cap rate has been plus or minus 6%. With your stock prices rising, with the sector occupancy tightening up, how do you think about the movement of deal pricing. Expectations. Over the next couple years?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:38:16)

We would see increased competition in the deal space, which is a good thing because that keeps the values high and also again goes to the idea of that this sector is not going away anytime soon. There has been significant growth in this space and as we talked about before, this is the beginning of next 25 years. There's a, it would always be competitive. And all the deals that we have closed this year, whether it was our Alberta portfolio or the properties in Ottawa or the property in Waterloo or the one in Mississauga or the one in Burlington, they were all heavily competed against. We don't Always get all of them, but we get our fair share. And it's just making sure the deal structure is right for the vendor, our ability to do other things, being flexible with our approach. So a lot of those things go into play. And you're right, it has been stuck. At 6% for a while. And for Class A properties, 5.75 is not an unreasonable number. And I'll just, you know, our High Gate property, for example, in Waterloo, we bought it for around $430,000 a door. And the construction cost for our Brantford property was close to 500,000 a door. And even though it was a much bigger home with long term care, so it's still significantly below replacement cost.

Tal Woolley - Equity Analyst - (00:39:40)

In terms of your overall appetite. Is the constraining factor capital availability, or are there some real operational management constraints in terms of what you can take on in a given year?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:39:54)

I think it's a combination of all of those things. But the fact we're sitting at $813 million of development acquisition is not by accident. This is our biggest year so far. And our view is this is not an anomaly. We should expect that going forward. And we spend a lot of time on our structure beginning of this year, making sure the right people are working on the right things. Because what we don't want to do is have acquisitions derail our operations. And we're seeing that in the results that not only we are acquiring and developing, but our operational results continue to stay strong. So the structure work that we did in the beginning of this year has worked out extremely well for us and we'll continue to tweak it so we do that work. So I would say we continue to see more and more opportunities. Our pipeline stays extremely strong and I think we'll continue to find opportunities both in development and acquisitions.

Tal Woolley - Equity Analyst - (00:40:49)

And then just lastly, on the LaSalle park transaction, I think if I'm doing my math right, 700,000 bucks a door, give or take, that's probably your most expensive transaction on a per door basis.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:41:03)

It is. And this is again, one of the things that you factor in is obviously the per door number. The second is how much noi is it generating. And that home does extremely well. And per door number, for example, not all suites are the same. We have property we bought in Ottawa where the price was close to twenty three hundred thousand dollars a door. Those suites are on half the size of what La Salle park are. The suite mix is quite a bit different and the location is quite a bit different. The 700,000 is pretty close to replacement Cost in some cases, but it comes fully leased up and it's an incredible part of Burlington.

Tal Woolley - Equity Analyst - (00:41:45)

I appreciate you've got the management and contract in place long term. Are these the types of higher value assets something you guys are interested in playing in more seriously? Well, absolutely.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:42:00)

We have those today. We bought the two Waterford properties in Ottawa and Kingston many years ago. We just bought Hazeldean, which is a $85 million home, 170 suites, around $500,000 a door. Our properties in BC, our first. So our model is we have three different kind of properties called in the St. Regis of the World which have full services, lot more amenity. The full service, call it the Sheridan of the world. And I'm using these because I came with a hotel background and then we would have some which are in smaller communities which are limited services and that's exactly what the residents need. So I would say we have those three tiers and we're very comfortable with operating all those three tiers, acquiring all those three tiers and building all those three tiers.

Tal Woolley - Equity Analyst - (00:42:50)

Do you have any particular view on where the demand ultimately is going to lie as this market really starts to grow in terms of the population?

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:43:03)

That is such an interesting question because you would think that all this demand would be and in the big cities such as Toronto and Vancouver and which is true, those these markets continue to be very strong. But having said that, we see very strong demands in Waterloo market. We just bought Highgate as we talked about, we have two other properties there. They're running close to 100% full. Our market and BC is very, very strong. Even our properties in Oshawa we have home that we did a strategic renovation and that's running close to to 100%. So I would say there is going to be demand all over. So the whole idea that there are not enough places for seniors to live, we are seeing that play out. So other than some very, very specific markets or very, very specific locations, I think you will see occupancy gains all around.

Tal Woolley - Equity Analyst - (00:43:55)

Okay, thanks very much, Nitin. Thank you, Carl.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:43:59)

Thanks for joining.

OPERATOR - (00:44:01)

The next question comes from Tom Callahan with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Tom Callahan - Equity Analyst - (00:44:10)

Thanks, operator. Good morning guys. Maybe just one for me on the balance sheet. Obviously there's significant opportunity ahead on both the internal and external growth for the business. So just kind of curious to get your thinking on the balance sheet from a leverage perspective. Is there kind of a debt to EBITDA you have in mind and think about on kind of a run rate basis and conversely, if the right External opportunity pops up and it's a bit chunkier. Where are you comfortable leverage wise?

David Hung - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Investments - (00:44:39)

Yeah, that's a great question, Tom. From a debt to EBITDA perspective, we've been talking about the last couple of years being under 8 times debt to EBITDA. We realize that currently our debt to ebitda is at 8.8 times. But I would point out the fact that that's at a moment in time because as the debt is as of September 30th, whereas the EBITDA is a trailing twelve months. So if we looked on a pro forma basis, we would find that our debt to EBITDA on a run rate basis would be under eight times. And that's where we would feel comfortable. Over the medium term, if something chunky came up and we really liked it, we might temporarily go up above that point. But over the medium term we'd like to get back down under eight times.

Tom Callahan - Equity Analyst - (00:45:33)

Okay, that makes sense. Appreciate it. I'll hop back. Thanks guys.

OPERATOR - (00:45:39)

Your next question is a follow up from Juliano Thornhill with National Bank Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:45:47)

Hey guys, sorry, I just had one follow up of the acquisitions you've done year to date. How have they the integration, has that really met your expectations or is it tracking ahead and I guess like occupancy margin and why. Thank you.

Nitin Jain - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:46:05)

And I think that's when we talk about our ability to close and I think it is most people think doing the acquisition is the most difficult part. And I would just argue that I think competitively operating is a lot more difficult. And this is where we are really seeing great success. In Alberta, for example, before properties, they're in fact running ahead of schedule. We had some income support which we have not drawn and expect to give it back to the owners, which is a win win. And the two properties we bought in Ottawa, one of them had an earn out structure for the seller and we would be giving them earn out structure and we, we share that. So the property is doing better than what we expected it to be. The home we just bought in Mississauga, which is a long term care home, it's full, we know that extremely well. So on day one we add synergies and it's going to perform better than what we underwrote. And Nicola Lodge, the home we bought in B.C. that we already owned a majority of it, so that fit extremely well. And when the others close, we do expect them to perform because of the work that we do to make sure we underwrite it correctly. And then how, how do we integrate it.

Juliano Thornhill - Equity Analyst - (00:47:16)

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Nettner.

OPERATOR - (00:47:20)

This concludes the question and answer session and does conclude today's conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.