DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2021

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS

NOTE 1—DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS

Ventas, Inc. (together with its consolidated subsidiaries, unless otherwise indicated or except where the context otherwise requires, “we,” “us” or “our”), an S&P 500 company, is a real estate investment trust (“REIT”) operating at the intersection of healthcare and real estate. We hold a highly diversified portfolio of senior housing, life science, research and innovation and healthcare properties located throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. As of September 30, 2021, we owned or had investments in approximately 1,300 properties (including properties classified as held for sale), consisting of senior housing communities, medical office buildings (“MOBs”), life science, research and innovation centers, inpatient rehabilitation facilities (“IRFs”) and long-term acute care facilities (“LTACs”) and health systems, which we generally refer to as “healthcare real estate.” Our company was originally founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with additional corporate offices in Louisville, Kentucky and New York, New York.

We primarily invest in a diversified portfolio of healthcare real estate assets through wholly owned subsidiaries and other co-investment entities. We operate through three reportable business segments: triple-net leased properties, senior living operations, which we also refer to as SHOP, and office operations. See “Note 2 – Accounting Policies” and “Note 16 – Segment Information.” Our senior housing properties are either subject to triple-net leases, in which case they are included in our triple-net leased properties reportable business segment, or operated by independent third-party managers, in which case they are included in our senior living operations reportable business segment.

As of September 30, 2021, we leased a total of 354 properties (excluding properties within our office operations reportable business segment) to various healthcare operating companies under triple-net or absolute-net leases that obligate the tenants to pay all property-related expenses, including maintenance, utilities, repairs, taxes, insurance and capital expenditures. Our three largest tenants, Brookdale Senior Living Inc. (together with its subsidiaries, “Brookdale Senior Living”), Ardent Health Partners, LLC (together with its subsidiaries, “Ardent”) and Kindred Healthcare, LLC (together with its subsidiaries, “Kindred”) leased from us 121 properties, 12 properties and 32 properties, respectively, as of September 30, 2021.

As of September 30, 2021, pursuant to long-term management agreements, we engaged independent managers, such as Atria Senior Living, Inc. (“Atria”) and Sunrise Senior Living, LLC (together with its subsidiaries, “Sunrise”), to manage 551 senior housing communities in our senior living operations segment for us.

Through our Lillibridge Healthcare Services, Inc. subsidiary and our ownership interest in PMB Real Estate Services LLC, we also provide MOB management, leasing, marketing, facility development and advisory services to highly rated hospitals and health systems throughout the United States. In addition, from time to time, we make secured and non-mortgage loans and other investments relating to senior housing and healthcare operators or properties.

During fiscal 2020 and continuing into fiscal 2021, our business has been and continues to be impacted by both the COVID-19 pandemic itself, including actions taken to prevent the spread of the virus and its variants, and the ongoing consequences and effects of the pandemic on our business, including our senior housing business, and the broader economy.

We have not identified the COVID-19 pandemic, on its own, as a “triggering event” for purposes of evaluating impairment of real estate assets, goodwill and other intangibles, investments in unconsolidated entities and financial instruments. However, as of September 30, 2021, we considered the effect of the pandemic on certain of our assets and our ability to recover the respective carrying values of these assets. We applied our considerations to existing critical accounting policies that require us to make estimates and assumptions regarding future events that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities. We based our estimates on our experience and on assumptions we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. For the nine months ended September 30, 2021 we recognized no COVID-19 related charges in our Consolidated Statements of Income.

The future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing consequences for the U.S. economy and our business remain highly uncertain. The extent of the pandemic’s continuing effect on our operational and financial performance will depend on a variety of factors, including the ultimate duration of the pandemic; the speed at which vaccines and other clinical treatments are successfully developed and deployed; the rate of acceptance of available vaccines, particularly among the residents and staff in our senior housing communities and the labor force more broadly; the impact of new variants of the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines and other clinical treatments against those variants; ongoing clinical experience, which may differ considerably across regions and fluctuate over time; the availability of ongoing government financial support to our business, tenants and operators; and the slope and pace of recovery of our senior housing business and the U.S. economy more generally. The pandemic and actions taken in response to the pandemic have had broad economic consequences, including for the labor market and global supply chain, which have affected and may continue to affect our business.