Ardent Health (ARDT) Q4 2025 Earnings Transcript

Motley Fool Transcribing, The Motley Fool

Thu, March 5, 2026 astatine 11:01 AM CST 38 min read

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Thursday, March 5, 2026 astatine 9 a.m. ET

• Chief Executive Officer — Martin Bonick

• Chief Financial Officer — Alfred Lumsdaine

Martin Bonick: Thank you, Dave, and bully morning. We admit everyone joining the telephone and webcast. During our 3rd 4th call, we committed to taking swift and decisive enactment to code definite manufacture challenges that has intensified. The initiatives were designed to fortify our operating exemplary and amended presumption the institution for semipermanent net growth. I'm pleased to stock that our 4th fourth results reflected a fig of affirmative developments and encouraging signs of advancement arsenic a effect of the actions we took since our past update. Key manufacture headwinds that we flagged arsenic accelerating connected the 3rd 4th call, including nonrecreational fees and different complaint pressures driven by payer denials showed stableness successful 4Q.

Additionally, our squad absorption connected disciplined execution and disbursal optimization is already starting to wage dividends and drove coagulated 4th fourth net performance. Furthermore, we generated robust currency travel that was supra our expectations resulting successful astir a 50% summation successful afloat twelvemonth 2025 operating currency flow. In short, I'm pleased with our decorativeness to 2025 and the momentum that we've built exiting the year. Importantly, we expect operating show traction to further ramp passim 2026. During today's conversation, I'm going to absorption my comments connected 3 cardinal areas: First, I'll locomotion you done 4th fourth performance, which resulted successful 2025, signaling our highest ever revenue, EBITDA and operating currency flow.

Second, I volition supply colour connected our IMPACT program, our enactment to amended margins, performance, agility and attraction translation and however those actions are strengthening our business, on with an update connected manufacture challenges we highlighted past quarter. And third, I volition stock discourse astir our 2026 fiscal guidance. Let's commencement with 4th fourth show successful 2025 results. We reported coagulated 4th fourth gross supported by durable manufacture demand. This capped disconnected a beardown 2025, wherever we grew afloat twelvemonth gross by 6% astatine $6.3 billion, squarely successful the mediate of our 2025 guidance range. Underpinning this show was beardown 2025 admissions and adjusted admissions maturation of 5.3% and 2.3%, respectively.

Fourth 4th adjusted EBITDA benefited from the interaction programme initiatives to optimize gross and streamline the business. For afloat twelvemonth 2025, we grew adjusted EBITDA 9% and expanded borderline 20 ground points. We besides generated important operating currency travel of $223 cardinal successful 4Q and $471 cardinal during 2025, up 49% from 2024. Our improving net profile, on with diligent enactment to maximize collections contributed to the ample increase. Finally, we strengthened our equilibrium expanse during the year. We accrued currency by astir $150 cardinal to implicit $700 cardinal astatine the extremity of 2025, and we reduced our lease adjusted nett leverage astir 0.5 crook to 2.5x.