Youi know me mate, I'm going to stick "doggedly" to my belief that earnings per share is what really matters :)
You're a good soul and I get where you are coming from. Other faster growing companies also have very happy residents. SUM resident satisfaction level is over 97%. I don't think Julian and his team are silly enough to think they can grow the company fast without having an incredibly high percentage of very happy residents.
My contention is simply that the staff shortage and rate of increase in staff costs and likely future difficulties with this, confers a significant advantage to sector players who have a far higher predominance of happy independent living residents than those needing high level's of care, or put another way, without facing anywhere near the same level of headwinds from staff costs SUM with their business model are considerably better positioned to continue to grow faster. I wouldn't invest in them if there was even a hint that they are doing this in an unethical way. They are well managed and well governed by an extremely experienced team.
I also like the fact that OCA are really looking after our really elderly folks who need advanced level's of care but the investment case isn't as compelling, at least in my opinion, but each to their own.
It'll be interesting to see what Maverick makes of this result. My read is if they can do ~$30m underlying in the second half that's $54m and barely any growth in last year or the year, so underlying eps on 609m shares is 8.9 cps. At $1.34 that out them on a forward PE of 15.1
PPE asset accretion has been minimal, as noted earlier, total NTA is up just 1 cent.
I have SUM on a forward FY20 PE of 14.4 growing much faster and with a vastly longer and more proven track record. I think if I bough a stake in OCA as a matter of diversification it would more than likely be a case of getting sub par returns for the sector and I can't have that because it would affect my BPI for 2020.