What happened
Specialized healthcare company Brookdale Senior Living (BKD -2.60%) was quite the stock market star on Wednesday. Its share price popped by more than 10% on the day, following the release of its latest set of quarterly earnings. That double-digit rise was in vivid contrast to the 0.2% decline of the S&P 500 index.
So what
For its fourth quarter of 2022, Brookdale earned nearly $700.6 million in revenue, which was 9% higher on a year-over-year basis. On the bottom line, the assisted-living healthcare company managed to narrow its net loss considerably; this came in at a bit more than $25.6 million ($0.13 per share), against fourth quarter 2021's $81.7 million deficit.
Both headline figures topped analyst estimates, with the net loss result doing so spectacularly. On average, prognosticators following Brookdale stock were modeling slightly under $696 million for revenue and a far deeper net loss of $0.41 per share.
In its earnngs release, Brookdale chalked up its improvements to higher resident fees, plus higher occupancy and revenue per available room (RevPAR; a widely used metric in the hospitality industry).
Now what
Brookdale expects its positive momentum to continue. It quoted CEO Cindy Baier as saying that "we are optimistic that our recovery will continue in 2023 and in January have seen stronger than expected move-in results."
The company proffered rather limited guidance to illustrate this bullishness. It believes RevPAR will rise by 11% to 12% in 2023 over the previous year, with non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization landing in the black at $70 million to $75 million.
