Ventas Profit Rises, Helped by Senior Business

   By Ezequiel Minaya 
 

Ventas Inc. (VTR), a health-care real estate investment trust, reported on Friday that profit rose 8.3%, in part due to the strong performance of its senior housing portfolio, and the company boosted a key profitability forecast.

Ventas, which owns senior housing communities, medical office buildings and hospitals, has sought to expand in the wake of the Affordable Care Act.

This year, Ventas announced plans to spin off 355 skilled nursing facilities and outpatient recovery centers into a new REIT dubbed Care Capital Properties Inc. and acquired Ardent Health Services, a Nashville-based operator of 14 hospitals in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

For the quarter, Ventas reported a profit of $149.8 million, or 45 cents a share, compared with $138.4 million, or 47 cents, a year earlier. Per-share earnings fell on a higher number of average shares outstanding in the latest period.

Revenue climbed 18.6% to $891.3 million from $751.3 million a year earlier, in part due to a jump in resident fees and services of 21% to $454.6 million.

Ventas beat the forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who predicted per-share earnings of 41 cents. It also surpassed estimates of $871 million in revenue for the quarter.

Normalized funds from operations, a closely watched REIT metric for profitability, climbed 19% to $394.3 million from $331.6 million from the same period last year. On a per-share basis, Ventas said normalized FFO translated to $1.18, compared with $1.12 for 2014.

The company reported that operating income from its senior housing portfolio was $155.4 million, which represented a jump of 24% from a year earlier.

Ventas also increased its 2015 normalized FFO projection to a range between $4.70 and $4.76, up from prior guidance of $4.67 to $4.75.

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at [e-mail]

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