Ventas Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-05-05 11:12:20.0

Tags: Call Transcript, Earnings, Balance Sheet, Debt, Citigroup Inc., Balance Sheets, Financial Statements, Financial Accounting, Finance, Seeking Alpha, Ventas Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). And your first question comes from the line of David Toti from Citi. Please proceed.

Michael Bilerman - Citigroup

Good morning. It's Michael Bilerman here with David. Debbie, I wanted to ask you, you talked a little bit about your balance sheet and how strong and a lot of the moves that you've made. And I think you mentioned the first time fixed charge has been north of three; debt to EBITDA of four times, which is significantly below both your peers and REITs overall. Debt to gross asset value below 40%. All these key ratios highlighting into leverage. As you think forward, because I think you've also talked a little about being optimistic in investing capital, how do you sort of see the balance sheet in terms of where you're willing to take leverage and think about how much capacity that gives you?

Debra Cafaro

Well, good morning Michael and team and thanks for joining. Right now, I think the focus really is on reducing aggregate leverage. And as you point out, that does two important things for us. It will allow us to weather a dislocated credit market that may continue to persist. And it will allow us to be opportunistic when we think we see something that makes sense for our company. It's too I think early to say right now how we're going to use that strength and. It is -- we're not prepared to give the all clear in terms of the credit markets or the economy. So we're taking a wait and see approach. But our overall view is that having this strength is going to benefit our stakeholders well because either way things go, we're going to be in a position to win.

Michael Bilerman - Citigroup

And that's fair. I guess if I am thinking more about long term is at some point, we will get an all clear. And I am just trying to put goal posts around where you would take the balance sheet because unless you are talking that you are going to stay at these sort of levels even if you are going to go in and buy, you will always get the balance sheet at this level? Or is it we're willing to go, we're willing to take leverage to 50%, we are willing to take net debt to EBITDA from four to six times? And obviously, when you do that, there is going to tremendous growth, and a lot of it will be debt fuel. So I'm just trying to figure out where your mindset is in terms of how you are going to manage the company once we do get an all clear.

 

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