Medical Properties Trust, Inc. MPW — also known as MPT — is scheduled to report first-quarter 2025 earnings results on May 1, before the opening bell. The company’s quarterly results are expected to reflect a year-over-year decline in revenues and normalized funds from operations (FFO) per share.

In the last reported quarter, this real estate investment trust (REIT), which acquires and develops net-leased hospital facilities, posted a normalized FFO per share of 18 cents, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 12.5%.

Over the trailing four quarters, MPT beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate on two occasions and missed twice, with the average surprise being 0.88%. This is depicted in the graph below:

Medical Properties Trust, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Medical Properties Trust, Inc. price-eps-surprise | Medical Properties Trust, Inc. Quote

Factors to Consider Ahead of Q1 Results

Medical Properties owns a premium acute care portfolio, which is likely to have benefited from the favorable operating trends of the healthcare industry on the back of an aging population.

Further, the adoption of a disciplined capital allocation strategy aimed at fortifying its balance sheet strength is likely to have given MPW an edge.

However, elevated interest expenses and exposure to certain troubled operators are anticipated to have cast a pall on the company’s quarterly performance to some extent.

Projections for MPW

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter rent-billed revenues is pegged at $153 million, suggesting a fall from $199.3 million reported in the year-ago period.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for straight-line rent revenues is pegged at $42 million, suggesting a decrease from the $44.7 million loss reported in the year-ago period.

The consensus mark for income from financing leases stands at $9.3 million, suggesting a fall from $16.4 million reported in the year-ago quarter. The consensus mark for interest and other income stands at $6.1 million, suggesting a decline from the $10.9 million reported in the prior-year quarter.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly revenues is pegged at $235.8 million, implying a 13.1% fall from the prior-year quarter’s reported figure.

Medical Properties’ activities during the to-be-reported quarter were inadequate to garner analysts’ confidence. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarterly normalized FFO per share has been revised a cent downward to 15 cents over the past two months. The figure implies a year-over-year fall of 37.5%.

What Our Quantitative Model Predicts

Our proven model predicts a likely surprise in terms of normalized FFO per share for Medical Properties this season. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an FFO beat, which is exactly the case here.

Medical Properties has an Earnings ESP of +12.68% and currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Other Stocks That Warrant a Look

Here are two other stocks from the other REIT industry — Ventas VTR and Ryman Hospitality Properties RHP — that you may also want to consider, as our model shows that these, too, have the right combination of elements to report a surprise this quarter.

VTR, scheduled to report quarterly numbers on April 30, has an Earnings ESP of +0.18% and a Zacks Rank of 2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Ryman is slated to report quarterly numbers on May 1. RHP has an Earnings ESP of +1.34% and carries a Zacks Rank of 3 at present. (See the Zacks Earnings Calendar to stay ahead of market-making news.)

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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