Almost a month after its stock started trading after its initial public offering, American Healthcare REIT (NYSE:AHR) gained two bullish ratings on Monday.
Bank of America Securities rates the REIT a Buy, while KeyBanc gives it an Overweight rating.
The REIT holds a portfolio of healthcare assets dominated by senior housing and skilled nursing facilities, which BofA analyst Joshua Dennerlein expects will benefit from the 82+ population growing at six times the rate of the overall U.S. population.
“AHR is well positioned to capture this demand and drive earnings growth,” the analyst wrote in a note to clients.
He points out that the RIDEA (Real Estate Investment and Diversification and Empowerment Act) structure of its senior housing and skilled nursing facility assets “allows AHR to participate in the upside and the downside of the facilities.”
RIDEA allows REITs to participate in the net operating income of the healthcare properties, rather than the lease structure in typical REITs, as long as the relevant facilities are run by a third-party manager.
In AHR’s case, Trilogy Health Services operates the REIT’s Integrated Senior Health Campuses (“ISHC”).
“We believe Trilogy has carved out a unique niche, and we note we were impressed with the Trilogy management team. As a result, we have a positive bias,” Dennerlein said.
That’s an important difference for KeyBanc analyst Austin Wurschmidt, too. “We view AHR’s largest concentration in ISHCs (~50% of pro rata NOI) and majority ownership in the operator (~75%) Trilogy Health Services to be an important differentiator vs. healthcare REIT peers.”
In addition, AHR “is the only healthcare REIT with notable operating exposure (i.e., RIDEA) to Skilled Nursing property level cash flows through its ownership of Trilogy,” he added.
American Healthcare’s (AHR) RIDEA portfolio makes up almost 60% of its NOI and offers “high operating leverage to a recovery in long-term care fundamentals in the coming years,” the analyst noted.
AHR shares rose 0.5% in Monday morning trading. Since its IPO, AHR stock has risen 14% from its IPO price of $12, compared with the S&P 500’s 3.7% increase in that same period.
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