Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Chartwell Retirement Residences Q4 2024 financial results conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to the CEO, Vlad Volodarski.
Thank you, Alana. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. There is a slide presentation to accompany this conference call available on our website at chartwell.com under the Investor Relations tab. Joining me are Karen Sullivan, President and Chief Operating Officer, Jeffrey Brown, Chief Financial Officer, and Jonathan Boulakia, Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer. Before we begin, I direct you to the cautionary statements on slide two, because during this call we will make statements containing forward-looking information and non-GAAP and other financial measures. Our MD&A and other securities filings contain information about the assumptions, risks, and uncertainties inherent in such forward-looking statements, and details of such non-GAAP and other financial measures. More specifically, I direct you to the disclosures in our 2024 MD&A under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties and Forward-Looking Information," for a discussion of risks and uncertainties.
These documents can be found on our website or on SEDAR+ website. Turning to slide three, I am proud of our teams who delivered outstanding results in virtually every area of our business in 2024. From the strong improvements in employee engagement and resident satisfaction to occupancy and cash flow growth to the record volumes of acquisition and financing activity, our people made 2024 an exceptional year. We at Chartwell know that our success starts with great service, and I'm grateful to our residences management teams and frontline employees for their unwavering dedication to those they serve, our residents, and their families. I am grateful to our people for the great progress we collectively made in the transition to a more agile and scalable operating platform. There has been a lot of change in how we operate our business in the last two years.
Our people demonstrated a tremendous agility in adjusting and adopting new processes, technologies, and even more importantly, the new mindset. We continue working together to further enable our residences management teams to develop local strategies, make faster decisions, and take bold actions. Our corporate support teams develop and implement tools, including technology solutions, deliver high-quality training, and targeted assistance to further enable our residences teams to outperform. The exceptional work of our people and the strong results that we achieved in 2024 give me confidence in our continued successes this year and beyond. Before I will share with you our focus and strategies for 2025, Karen will provide an operating update, Jeff will dive deeper into our Q4 and 2024 year-end results, and Jonathan will update you on our transactional activities. We'll start with Karen. Karen, over to you.
Thanks, Vlad. Moving on to slide four, our leasing activity continued to be strong in Q4 with a positive net permanent move-in, permanent move-out of plus 689 units, including particularly strong results in December, setting us up well to mitigate the historic winter dip in occupancy. We held our first open house event in January, increasing the number of high-quality initial contacts, and the teams are now in the process of purposeful activities to nurture these prospects by bringing them back for follow-up tours and events at our homes. In Q4, we continued to focus our marketing strategies on quality channels, including Google, Facebook, email, radio/print, and local TV, which resulted in a nearly 10% increase in personalized tours from marketing initiatives in Q4 2024 compared to Q4 2023.
In addition, traffic from non-paid organic sources accounted for 57% of the traffic to our website, and conversions, that is, forms filled out to obtain additional information on living in a Chartwell home, grew 62% from Q4 2023. In 2024, we established national partnerships with several organizations to promote referrals to our residences, including affinity relationships with the Independent Financial Brokers of Canada, Scotia Wealth Management, and MD Financial, as well as the Alberta Retired Teachers' Association. We're continuing with our property-specific pricing strategies to grow market rate in homes with higher occupancy, eliminating recurring discounts for some communities, targeting specific suites for discounts to accelerate lease-up, or continuing with broader-based discounts depending on occupancy levels and competitors' rates. Turning to slide 5, we reduced our staffing agency costs by 60% in 2024 compared to 2023 through focused recruitment and retention activities, and continue to be consistently below pre-pandemic levels.
We have specific strategies in place for harder-to-fill positions such as RPNs, as well as for areas of the country where recruitment remains a challenge. We completed operational reorganizations in Ontario and Western Canada to create a more agile and responsive structure to empower and support our general managers and management teams to drive results. A similar reorganization in Quebec is now underway in Q1. We also provided in-person training to our management teams across the country in discipline-specific sessions this past fall in order to roll out new programs and enhance their knowledge and leadership skills. We also held a very successful leadership conference with all of our general managers from across the country in January to celebrate our 2024 results and set the stage for further success in 2025.
The operations team has also been focused on continuing to integrate the properties that we recently purchased in Quebec and BC, including most recently another retirement residence on Vancouver Island and preparing for the upcoming acquisition of a large 660-suite home on the island in Montreal. Finally, I wanted to share another example of our ongoing efforts to develop individual property-specific strategies to better meet the needs in our local communities. Chartwell Constantia started 2024 with an occupancy of 67%. This home is located in North York in a predominantly Jewish community. By increasing our focus on programming, including authentic high-holiday celebrations, menu selections, and community outreach, networking, and business development, the team has increased occupancy to 83%, including 12 move-ins in the last three months of 2024. The residence has now been rebranded Chartwell Thornhill, and there are several initiatives underway to continue this momentum in occupancy growth.
I will now turn it over to Jeff to take you through our financial results.
Great. Thank you, Karen. As shown on slide six, in 2024, net income was CAD 22.4 million compared to net income of CAD 128.3 million in 2023. 2023 included the CAD 178.7 million gain on sale from the completed LTC transactions. Stronger operating results and lower G&A expenses positively contributed to net income, which were partially offset by deferred tax expense and higher finance costs. FFO from continuing operations increased 61.7%, and total FFO increased 48.3% in 2024 compared to 2023 from strong operating results in our core property portfolio.
2024 FFO growth also benefited from higher adjusted NOI from continuing operations of CAD 76.2 million, lower G&A expenses of CAD 11 million, one-time retroactive government funding related to LTC discontinued operations of CAD 1.4 million, higher adjusted interest income of CAD 1.4 million, and lower depreciation of PP&E and amortization of intangible assets used for administrative purposes of CAD 0.4 million, partially offset by higher adjusted finance costs of CAD 14.2 million and lower management fees of CAD 0.9 million. In 2024, our same property occupancy increased 590 basis points to 88%, and our same property adjusted NOI increased CAD 38.8 million or 18.9%.
For Q4 2024, net income was CAD 3.5 million compared to a net loss of CAD 13.2 million in Q4 2023, primarily due to higher resident revenue, lower negative changes in fair value of financial instruments, impairment losses in Q4 2023, higher net income from joint ventures, lower G&A expenses, and higher current income tax benefit, partially offset by higher direct property operating expense, deferred tax expense in Q4 2024 as compared to a deferred tax benefit in Q4 2023, higher depreciation of PP&E, and higher finance costs. Q4 2024 FFO from continuing operations was up 46.9%, and FFO from total operations increased 47.5% compared to Q4 2023. Our operating results in our core property portfolio continued to show strong growth. In Q4 2024, our same property occupancy increased 510 basis points to 90.1%, and our same property adjusted NOI increased CAD 8 million or 14.4%.
Slide seven summarizes our same-property operating results for each platform. All of our platforms posted occupancy gains in Q4 2024 compared to Q4 2023, which positively impacted our results. Our Western Canada platform's same-property Adjusted NOI increased CAD 1.7 million or 9.3%. Our Ontario platform's same-property Adjusted NOI increased CAD 4.3 million or 13.7%. And our Quebec platform's same-property Adjusted NOI increased CAD 2 million or 31.5%. Turning to slide eight, at February 27, 2025, liquidity amounted to approximately CAD 283 million, which included CAD 44 million of cash and cash equivalents and CAD 239 million of undrawn capacity on our credit facilities. In 2025, our debt maturities include CAD 343.8 million of mortgages with a weighted average interest rate of 5.29%, CAD 150 million of 4.211% unsecured debentures, and a CAD 75 million term loan.
As of February 27, 2025, we estimate the 10-year CMHC insured mortgage rate to be approximately 3.84% and the 5-year unsecured venture rate to be approximately 4.31%. Moving to slide nine, with the continuing strong prospect traffic and leasing activity, we expect occupancy to continue to grow in 2025. We now forecast to achieve 91.1% same property occupancy by March of this year. We have been using targeted incentives in certain markets to support this rapid occupancy growth. As more residences achieve higher occupancy rates, we expect to gradually reduce the use of these incentives. We are working hard to maintain the positive occupancy growth momentum, striving to reach 95% occupancy in our same property portfolio by the end of this year. We expect rent and services rates to increase by approximately 4% in 2025 and same property operating margins to grow to approximately 40%.
As a result of various efficiency initiatives, we expect growth in our general and administrative expenses to be below inflation. I will now turn the call to Jonathan to discuss our recent acquisitions and portfolio optimization activities.
Thanks, Jeff. Turning to slide 10, in Q4, we completed the acquisition of a 50% ownership interest in a portfolio of five retirement residences in Quebec, four of which are located in Quebec City area and one in Shawinigan, for an aggregate purchase price at our share of CAD 213.5 million. The vendor provided us with a two-year NOI guarantee on two properties, with CAD 4.7 million of the purchase price to be held in escrow to support the vendor's obligation.
In Q3 2028, subject to a one-year extension at the vendor's option, the vendor will have an option to sell and will have an option to purchase the remaining 50% ownership interest in this portfolio at the then fair market value. In January of this year, we acquired an upscale 131-suite ISL retirement residence in Victoria, BC, for a purchase price of CAD 75 million. This acquisition is our fourth property on Vancouver Island, adding critical mass in the region. Also, in January, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a 632-suite retirement residence located in Montreal, Quebec, for CAD 136 million, which is expected to close shortly. All of these newer high-quality assets are located in strong markets and in great locations within those markets. We acquired these premium residences at attractive pricing, significantly below replacement cost.
We expect higher market rate growth out of these assets than our same store portfolio over the medium term, which will generate strong investment returns. 2024 was a record year of investments for Chartwell. We are seizing opportunities to refresh our portfolio with high-quality assets at attractive pricing in our core markets. Q1 of 2025 has also been busy, and we hope to continue this momentum throughout 2025, with more exciting strategic acquisitions being evaluated and at various stages of negotiation. We also continue the path of portfolio optimization with several residences that we no longer consider core to our portfolio being repositioned, sold, or planned for sale. This process will continue throughout 2025 and into 2026. Disposition of non-core properties will lower the average age of our portfolio, position our portfolio more strategically, and free up capital to pursue strategic growth opportunities.
I'll turn the call back to Vlad to wrap up.
Thank you, Jonathan. Moving to slide 11. Today, maybe more than ever, there is a lot of uncertainty in the world, and particularly in our country's relationship with the United States. The threat of trade disputes and their potential to create an economic downturn is real. We cannot reliably assess or predict the potential impact of this situation on our country or on Chartwell at this time. Having said that, our business is predominantly needs-driven and historically has been less susceptible to economic downturns. For example, during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, our same property portfolio remained stable in the 90% occupancy range. Whatever the future might bring, we will continue to focus on resident experience, striving to deliver exceptional personalized services and quality care, and leveraging our strong management platform to efficiently support our residences' teams.
We believe we are at the front end of what is going to be a multi-year period of growth in retirement living in Canada. Demand for our services should continue to grow for decades, driven by the senior population growth and lack of long-term care accommodation. Forecasts show that to maintain supply-demand balance, the sector would need to build 200,000 suites in the next 10 years, which is almost three times the number of suites built in the previous 10 years. With the persistently high cost of construction, the new development activity has been slow, which, combined with the obsolescence of some of the existing inventory, will continue to exacerbate supply shortage. These dynamics will support occupancy growth, higher market rates, and profitability of the existing operators. As one of the largest participants in the senior living sector, Chartwell stands to benefit from them. Turning to slide 12.
To build on our recent successes and reap the benefits of the positive operating environment, we will continue our focus on operational excellence, investing in employee engagement and resident satisfaction strategies, and continue our work on building an agile and scalable operating platform to generate operating efficiencies. We believe that the positive operating environment in our sector presents a unique opportunity to future-proof our portfolio, growing it with the newer, more efficient assets in strong markets and realizing better value on dispositions of non-core properties, which generally are smaller, less efficient, and often located in secondary and tertiary markets. We will continue to be prudent in our capital management decisions. We'll strive to diversify our capital sources, including through new joint ventures, to support access to growth capital in all phases of economic and real estate cycles. We'll maintain a strong liquidity position and conservative debt leverage profile.
And over time, we intend to grow distributions to our unit holders on a consistent basis. We are optimistic about the future and united in our drive to continue delivering strong results for all of our key stakeholders. I will now close our prepared remarks with a short story from one of our residences as pictured on slide 13. This is Carmen's story from one of our more recently acquired properties, Chartwell Victorian in Victoria. Carmen moved to Chartwell Victorian with her husband. Like for many couples, it was a tough decision to leave their long-term home. She was increasingly worried about her stamina and physical strength because a few weeks before moving, Carmen suffered a fall resulting in multiple injuries, including a fractured pelvis. Frustrated by how her posture has declined, now after the fall, she was hunched over with a walker.
She had always been an energetic, avid walker, living a full and busy life. Upon arriving to the residence, Carmen was determined to regain her strength. She set a goal with our wellness manager to walk without a walker. Partnered with a specialist to develop a personalized training plan, she started slowly but stayed committed. Continued to train weekly with both our kinesiologist and personal training, participating in group activities alongside personal training. She surpassed her original goal. Not only did she ditch the walker, increased her weights, and she set a stretch goal for herself to complete 20 consecutive push-ups, which she has achieved. 88 years young, proving that the fitness goals can evolve at any age, Carmen's beyond proud of her accomplishments. She's a strong advocate for strength training and functional fitness and true ambassador for the wellness program at the residence.
Thank you for your attention this morning. We would now be pleased to answer your question.
Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone line. If you have a question, please press star one. You may cancel your question at any time by pressing star two. Please press star one at this time. If you have a question, there will be a brief pause while the participants register for questions. Thank you for your patience. The first question is from Tom Callaghan with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. Maybe just first one is just in terms of the opening remarks there in acquisitions and in various stages of negotiation, can you just give some color in terms of the types of properties you're looking at today? Or do they skew towards maybe more lease-up or stabilized? And then are there certain markets versus others that are of interest today?
Sure. Yeah, I'll take that. So we are looking at a number of exciting one-off acquisitions which are attractive to us and would fit nicely in our portfolio. They're generally of newer properties, which is important to us to ensure our portfolio remains efficient and resilient to future competition. And I think pretty much all the opportunities we've looked at or are looking at are generally below replacement cost. So they represent a great way to access newly developed assets at good pricing. Some of them are fully leased up. Some of them are in lease-up stage. But mostly, we're looking for stabilized assets to be acquiring. And where are we looking to grow? We're generally looking in the markets that we are in.
We are focused on the West, Ontario, and in Quebec, we have an important pipeline of newer assets that we are acquiring at kind of a continuous and steady pace.
Okay, thanks. Maybe just a second one. You've obviously done some acquisitions with properties undergoing lease-up. Just curious, I know there are some moving pieces here, but can you just provide some color in terms of how we should think about the cadence and quantum of recognition of the income guarantees that a few of those properties came with over the course of 2025?
I mean, some of the properties that came during 2025, particularly the ones on Vancouver Island, are not at a very low occupancy level. So we will be utilizing more of NOI guarantees in the early years or months of our operation. In other cases, the properties that came from Batimo, they're almost a stabilized occupancy level. So those NOI guarantees are shorter in duration and will be realized over a shorter period of time based on the agreements and the status of the lease-up of these properties.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. The next question is from Himanshu Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. So just looking at your 2025 outlook, so 4% rent growth, let's say 3% occupancy gains, 300 basis point margin expansion. So what kind of same property NOI growth will this translate to?
Himanshu, we don't give these specific guides, but I think you can kind of back into the numbers just from the amounts that we quoted. It should continue to be pretty healthy given the 4% rental rate growth. Our expenses, we expect to grow between 4% and 5% on the labor side, and that's the majority of the expenses. And then we do expect to get to 95% occupancy by the end of the year. I mean, some of your question will be determined by how quickly we get there. Whether we get there on December 31st or earlier will determine how big expansion of the margin and NOI growth is going to be.
Got it. Okay. Fair enough. So maybe the ingredients kind of get you to low teens or call it double digits, same property NOI growth. Fair to say that?
Yes.
Okay. Okay. Fantastic. And then Same Property, thanks for laying out the math clearly out there. On the growth portfolio, and I know I think the Quebec got added there as well, do you have a sense of how margins should move or occupancy should move here?
Good morning, Himanshu. Those properties that are in the growth portfolio are at different stages of lease-up. Some are stabilized. Some are still in lease-up. So it's quite a varied level of growth and margin expansion across that portfolio. So we couldn't give you one number that really represents the group of 31 properties that are in that portfolio bucket now.
Plus, many of them do not have year-over-year comparison. It's kind of we didn't own them for the full year of last year. That's why they're in this growth portfolio. The comparison year-over-year is not very meaningful.
Fair enough. And that's a fair point. And then maybe just the Quebec City portfolio, I think that's added to the growth now. I think that got done in November. So what was the in-place NOI margin on this Quebec City portfolio? Because if I look at the growth portfolio NOI margin, is that the reason why sequentially we saw a downtick apart from the seasonality element of it?
Potentially. I mean, it's a detailed question. We can get back to you on that separately. There are some assets that are in lease-up in that portfolio, and so it is running at a little lower margin. So probably it's kind of mid- to high-30s would be the margins for that property for that portfolio.
Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Thank you, and I'll turn it back.
Thank you. The next question is from Lorne Kalmar with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. Taking a look at the rent growth assumption for 2025, 4% I think has been fairly consistent with what you guys have been able to put up probably for the last decade or so. When do you expect to see market rent growth start to accelerate?
We expect, as more and more properties achieving so the reason that the 4% is consistent with what we delivered in the past is that we have been offering, as Karen pointed out, some targeted incentives, probably at a broader scale than historically over the last couple of years to drive occupancy. And these incentives are still now in the system that kind of push down year-over-year comparisons, particularly given the occupancy growth that we had last year. So some of the move-ins came with discounts that continue to be in place. And so the growth is not as robust as you would expect. As we get closer to this 95% portfolio-wide occupancy, that means that more and more of the properties are at fully stabilized occupancy level.
My expectation is that these discounts and incentives are going to be pulled back, and we will continue to generate higher market rate increases in our portfolio in 2026. As I mentioned many times before, the increases that we're passing to our existing residents, my expectation will be that they will not be as high as what we can generate on the market rate.
Okay. Yeah. And then maybe just switching to the development side, I think last quarter you talked about how it might be sooner than people think just because of how developers look several years out when they're doing the pro formas. Are there any markets that you're in that you think are maybe more susceptible to new development once the new cycle kicks off?
I think some of it is a function of how many people will prepare to go ahead with their developments before these dynamics played out of rising construction costs and the pandemic impact. Because if somebody's starting from scratch with an empty piece of land, it's going to take some time, particularly in the urban markets, to get through entitlement process and approvals. But if people were ready to go before that, then potentially they could start development faster. I think just purely because of the dynamics in the Quebec market and cost being lower there, we might see more developments starting in Quebec. We ourselves are looking at potentially doing some expansions in Quebec this year. Other than that, I can't really tell you which markets will be more susceptible to new developments than others.
Well, fair enough. That was very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from Jonathan Kelcher with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. Just circling back to the 4% rate growth you're targeting for 2025, is there much of a difference for what you're asking on new leasing versus what you're getting on renewals?
It is very property specific, and so it's not really, we can't give you a generic answer to that. Some of the properties will continue to use targeted incentives, so they may be discounting the market rates a bit. Other properties will be driving a lot higher market rates than they're increasing the rents for the existing residents because their occupancy is high, and as I mentioned before, we try not to increase rents to the existing residents by more than what our costs are growing by, so it really depends on the individual property circumstances.
Okay. I guess another way of asking that is, on the ones on your properties that are full, maybe have waiting lists, how much of a gap would you do between new leasing versus renewals?
Okay. I mean, in some properties, new leasing could be high single digits, low double digits, market rate increases. With the rents increases to the existing residents would be 4%-5% range, maybe 5.5%.
Okay. And then just switching gears on the acquisition front, you've got in and around CAD 300 million from Batimo that is set to come on. How should we think about the cadence of that this year? And if I'm thinking purchase, should we be thinking somewhere in the low six cap rate for those assets as a whole?
Yeah. You should be thinking low six cap rates for those assets. And we expect to take on a couple assets in the near term. And then not sure we'll see any more in 2025.
Okay. So sort of two of the three?
Yeah.
Okay. Thanks. I'll turn it back.
Thank you. The next question is from Kristian Gravenor with CoStar Group. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking the call. I see that you guys have 32 acres of undeveloped land across Canada. You got quite a bit in Gatineau. I see you have valuable land in Calgary and Surrey. I know you sort of addressed this prior, but could you give me sort of a timeline to possible builds there of one or some more advanced than others? And is it possible you might just sell off some of these properties or what the plans are?
The answer is, again, it depends on individual locations. As I mentioned, there is a possibility that we're going to do a couple of expansions or start a couple of expansions in Quebec on the lands that we already own, and the other one's really a function of economics of development. So at this point in time, it's really hard to predict the timeline of when these projects can commence. I can tell you that we're actively our development team is working very hard to get through entitlement process on some of the lands and being ready to begin construction when the economics are better.
In some cases, yes, we might consider selling the excess density if we either have too much to build retirement community on it or if we don't think that we will be developing that particular piece of land in the next 5-10 years.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Tal Woolley with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Good morning. I just had a question on your full year NOI margins. So they came in at 37% or so, and around a year ago, you guided for 38% on that. I'm just wondering, is that delta mostly from your incentive use or the agency costs coming in lower, like the burn-off being slower than you thought?
Good morning. The incentive program does have some impact on the margin, and there is some seasonality. So it is, with utilities and certain other expenses, that does cause Q4 to come in a bit lighter than Q3. But we still did have really significant growth of two and a half percentage points over last year. And is Ledger expecting to get up to approximately 40% for 2025 as we see continued growth in occupancy and rate driving that margin expansion.
Okay. So it's a bit of both. I guess to the development side, relative to a year or two years ago, how have hard costs kind of trended? And then will the kind of the delivery of all the product in the GTA within apartments, is that going to affect the hard cost situation at all?
Yeah. Hard costs seem to be leveling out generally. But again, there's a lot of uncertainty that Vlad talked about earlier this morning with tariffs and other measures that might be taken. And so we don't know yet what impact that will have, if any, on hard costs and materials. So there's a little bit of uncertainty on where they're heading. But the last year or so, we've seen some leveling off of hard costs.
And then I guess on the second part of the question, is there a lot of overlap between the contractors and seniors' housing and the apartment or condo builders?
Yeah. For sure. On the trade side, yeah. So the drywallers, the plumbers, they work on both kinds of projects.
And then just lastly, on the dispositions, I know you guys kind of quoted it at the beginning. Is this going to be a significant source of proceeds over the balance of the year, or is it just going to be more similar to last year as well?
Yeah. I'm not sure it's going to be significant. We continue to evaluate the portfolio, and we're continuing to sell and reposition assets at the right time. But it's a process, and it's probably a multi-year process. And I don't think we should expect significant proceeds coming in in the near term.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. Once again, please press star one at this time if you have a question. The next question is from Pammi Bir with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. You've made some great progress on the G&A cost efficiency side. And I know you mentioned inflationary-type growth, but do you think there's further efficiencies that you might be able to achieve going forward, or have you kind of hit a steady state level?
Good morning, Pammi. I think we have hit a steady state level and think this is the right run rate for the business, and the efficiencies are more going to come in being able to add in more properties to the portfolio without growing G&A at a similar pace.
Okay. Maybe just switching to leverage, we've seen that's come down nicely, I guess, over the past year for sure. From where you sit today, is that where you'd like to operate, or are you willing to push it a little bit higher from current levels?
Our plan is to continue to delever the business. We believe we are targeted to get to seven and a half times, and we think that comes from continuing to grow EBITDA to support that lower leverage level.
Okay. Last one from me, Vlad. I think you mentioned new JVs as something that either was in the works or discussions that maybe you're looking to pursue. Can you maybe just expand on that? Is there anything in any sort of more advanced stages at this point?
There's nothing in the more advanced stages at this point. The intent is to continue looking for diverse sources of capital so that we can have access to that growth capital in all cycles by the real estate or economy. And we are in discussions with a number of different people on a number of different opportunities, but they are not advanced enough to be more specific than just that.
Okay, so these would be more passive as opposed to partnering up with existing owners' operators?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Our discussions are revolving around both growth with the kind of core type of properties that are stabilized so that we can partner with other people to acquire those portfolios or properties. And also on the development side, as we just discussed, we have quite a number of opportunities on our own lands and intensifying some of the sites where we already have retirement residences. And we are looking to execute on this development program over time without putting undue stress on our own balance sheet. And that's why we're looking for partners.
Got it. Makes sense. I'll turn it back. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Himanshu Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thank you, so. Just a couple of follow-ups here. So on financing of the announced acquisitions, the Victoria Harbour property, was that done purely on the credit facility, Jeff?
Yeah. That was financed with the credit facility.
Okay. And then on Le Rosemont, Montreal, do you expect CMHC debt coming in for that acquisition?
That is one that we haven't finalized that will be eligible for CMHC. We haven't finalized whether we will pursue that or look at other sources, including the debenture market, which continues to get more attractive relative to CMHC.
Got it. Okay. Yeah. That's a good point there. And then finally, the Edgewater, still Q2 closing? I mean, any sense of timing what we should assume in our model?
I think you should continue to assume Q2.
Q2 is fair enough, and Johnson, anything on the Ballyc liffe? I mean, that seems to be just pushing out quarter by quarter. Finally, any update there?
Yeah. We got occupancy at Ballyc liffe, and now we are preparing the building for residents to transition over from the older building to the new one.
And do you plan to keep it or dispose it as you were previously expecting last year?
Yeah, well, as you know, we largely exited the Ontario long-term care business. So holding one asset would not be poor, but we are evaluating our options with respect to this property. It's not being managed by Chartwell. It's third-party managed. So we have some flexibility.
Fair enough. Okay. Thank you, Aldon back, and thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time, so I will turn the meeting back over to Mr. Volodarski.
Thank you, Alanna. This wraps up today's conference call. Thanks again to everybody for joining us. As always, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to give us a call. Goodbye.
Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.