SUM - Summerset Group

[couta1]

If you buy one of the licences to occupy it does not guarantee you a place in the nursing or dementia units. You may be given preference if you have your name down for the hospital, but as the need for a hospital bed is likely to be an urgent need you will have the risk of needing to find a bed before a vacancy may open in the village where you have your licence to occupy. So my feeling is that whether a village has hospital/dementia care should be quite low down in your priorities when deciding where to move. Whether it has a rest home maybe more important as you will more likely have the ability to wait it out for a vacancy to open up. Obviously if villages have greater capacity they may have more spaces available...but a greater cost blow-out.

Partially true but people are now asking if dementia care is available upon entering the village as they want to avoid any future moves down the track and want the total continuum model in operation.It is rare when someone who has a llicense to occupy has to go elsewhere for hospital/dementia care and the odd time it happens they usually return to their chosen village as soon as a bed becomes available. Its also about commercial disadvantage from our point of view as shareholders when it doesnt need to be in Sums case.

[Beagle]

Roger, I must admit I invested in SUM over RYM based on the name. RYM seem to have a bad rep up here in Orewa. They are indeed ruthless and there are all sorts of stoires about charging an arm and a leg for sticking plaster etc. These are the stories doing the rounds at the Orewa Bridge club where my mother plays. I can't validate the stories.

I'm feeling better about my stop-loss being triggered at $3.11. I thought about getting back in today, but that sure is an ugly looking chart.

Yeah my Dad didn't have a good last part to his innings in the dementia unit there as previously mentioned and they've packed too much on to that site in my opinion.
You're not wrong mate about the chart looking ugly That's a scary looking thing...

[Beagle]

Partially true but people are now asking if dementia care is available upon entering the village as they want to avoid any future moves down the track and want the total continuum model in operation.It is rare when someone who has a llicense to occupy has to go elsewhere for hospital/dementia care and the odd time it happens they usually return to their chosen village as soon as a bed becomes available. Its also about commercial disadvantage from our point of view as shareholders when it doesnt need to be in Sums case.

This is real worry. I thought they were looking to build all their new facilities with dementia units ? If they're not going to offer the full continuum of care to the average new resident moving in at the average age of 78 then the company is effectively handing itself a serious handicap in terms of how attractive their villages are to new residents aren't they mate ? They're also missing out on this potentially lucrative income stream...there's a reason Ryman actually make money from the day to day operation of their villages...I would have thought SUM would have realised that by now...go figure ?

Mate I'd be very interested to know your full take on this situation given your extensive experience in the field. Feel free to PM me if its too sensitive to post in the main forum.

[troyvdh]

Come on guys ...no question that daily chatter is great ..,.but what about your investment horizons...

[Bjauck]

Partially true but people are now asking if dementia care is available upon entering the village as they want to avoid any future moves down the track and want the total continuum model in operation.It is rare when someone who has a llicense to occupy has to go elsewhere for hospital/dementia care and the odd time it happens they usually return to their chosen village as soon as a bed becomes available. Its also about commercial disadvantage from our point of view as shareholders when it doesnt need to be in Sums case.

I cannot quote statistics, if indeed anybody can. It would be interesting to know the rate at which village residents cannot move into care in their own village. I only know of one person who has needed rest home care when in a village - a Summerset village too. She was not able to wait long and was not able to wait for a vacancy in the on-site rest home. The continuum of care aspect had been highlighted in the village info pack when she bought her unit. Maybe a proviso should be clearly added that a place cannot be guaranteed. Maybe some would move back to the original village if they had partner/ good friends who were still there either in a unit or in the rest home/hospital. Otherwise another hassle when you do not want it and perhaps led to believe initially that would not happen.

[winner69]

Roger - what you make o the increased bank loans numbers - up $54m from a year ago to $132m

Debt:Equity ratio gone from 31% last June to 45% ths June

Appreciate need dosh to build things but note that Ryman seem to do it with keeping Debt:Equity around the 30% mark.

Seems Ryman makes money to grow, Summerset borrow to grow.

What you say?

[Joshuatree]

Whoah pretty ugly chart there ,commiserations to holders and hope longterm its just a blip.

[Onion]

Maybe Infratil will be eyeing up Summerset now.

"The company continues to see attractive opportunities in the retirement care sector, having spent $147.9m to buy 19.9 per cent of Metlifecare, but nothing is allocated to the sector in the 2015 forecast."

[Beagle]

Roger - what you make o the increased bank loans numbers - up $54m from a year ago to $132m

Debt:Equity ratio gone from 31% last June to 45% ths June

Appreciate need dosh to build things but note that Ryman seem to do it with keeping Debt:Equity around the 30% mark.

Seems Ryman makes money to grow, Summerset borrow to grow.

What you say?

Hi W69,

Not surprised by that at all and have been modelling the extra interest costs it into my forecasts. I've probably let it slip once or twice before that I'm not sure having a land bank of approx. 7 years building supply is the optimum commercial strategy and on relative capitalisation basis SUM certainly have a bigger land bank than RYM, (although very recently RYM have been fairly aggressive in their land acquisition strategies which won't show up on their balance sheet until the next set of financial statements). SUM do however manage their interest costs well through the use of swaps they've got their interest costs down to about 4% if I remember correctly, (that'll be Julian Cook's expertise in investment banking).

P.S. They spent nearly $100m on five site purchases last year so the extra holding costs have to show up and indeed have, which is another factor dragging on their result yesterday and will continue to have an effect this year and next until their forward land supply normalises. My perspective on this is this strategy would work better if they were targeting a significant increase in their build rate in future years, say 350 in 2016 and 400 in 2017 but to date the company isn't giving any forward guidance of that nature beyond the well documented 300 units for calendar year 2015 and beyond. I guess their somewhat aggressive land acquisition strategy could be viewed as a good thing if one believes they have the capability to scale up their building operations over time....but seeing as they can't even see the benefits of having dementia units in their developments one has to wonder...

[Harvey Specter]

Maybe Infratil will be eyeing up Summerset now.

Unlikely I would have thought. Why buy two competing businesses? I would expect them taking out smaller operators or, just though additional investment via MET (just as how IFT counts investment by TPW as additional investment). We all know MET needs to step up its game and the jump in shareprice once IFT invested suggests everyone thinks IFT will do that for them.