MET - Metlifecare - one for the fundies?

[trader_jackson]

I've said this once, I've said this a thousand times... it is about balancing care side of things with the units side of things.

You can't have a crap and/or small care operation and be largely units... eventually people aren't too keen on being told "when the time comes and you need care, well we might try fit you in otherwise you'll have to go down the road and move out as our care side of things is pretty small here [at the village - aka good luck to you sir when you need more than just a unit!]" (this is the approximate words that came out of sum villages - no joke)... this is what MET and SUM are. They have a care operation, but relative to their units it is pretty small.

You also can't be too reliant on care otherwise things get squeezed (eg how ARV and OCA were when they listed, and ARV has now greatly expanded their units side of things, and continues to do so, as does OCA... unfortunately OCA doesn't seem to have great cost controls when it comes to their care side of things in recent time)

You have to have a balance... a real continuum of care... this is what ARV, OCA and RYM are doing well, and ARV and RYM are doing really well (aka making more and more money out of the care side).

Because that real continuum of care is what is actually driving demand and will continue to do so as the population ages and has more variety of villages to select from (and I say real as MET has 4064 ILU's, and 934 care beds, apartments and suits - aka for not even 20% of the operation is care, meaning if 5 people need to get care at once, only 1 of them might be able to stay in the same village, the other 4 have to go elsewhere). We are starting to see this with serious slow downs at MET and SUM... why go to one of these villages, have the uncertainty of likely not getting into care when you need it most,when you can go down the road to an ARV, RYM or OCA village that 'has it all?'

Sum people on this thread totally ignored the increasingly obvious value proposition of having a good, fairly large (but not too large) care operation (that is ideally profitable) as part of ones villages and instead thought the more units one could pump out, the better it would be - how wrong this is turning out to be... so yes, demand has fallen away for villages that are increasingly inadequate at catering for the changing needs of that demand... and likely increased at those villages that are increasingly adequate at catering for the changing needs of that demand... that is why I have never owned MET or SUM as the music as always going to stop at some point.

Disclosure: I have been saying this for years and am glad fairly recent results from the sector have finally validated this.