Shares of Medical Properties Trust MPW — also known as MPT — have gained 67% in the past three months, outperforming the industry’s growth of 4.4%.

This healthcare real estate investment trust (REIT) is engaged in acquiring and developing net-leased healthcare facilities. Its properties consist of general acute care hospitals, behavioral health facilities, post-acute care facilities, freestanding ER/urgent care facilities and other assets.

Analysts seem positive about this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its 2025 FFO per share has been revised one cent northward to 62 cents over the past week.

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Let us decipher the possible factors behind the surge in the stock price.

The senior citizens’ population is expected to rise in the years ahead. As a result, the national healthcare expenditure by senior citizens, who constitute a major customer base of healthcare services and incur higher healthcare expenditures than the average population, will likely increase in the upcoming period.

Moreover, the healthcare sector is relatively immune to the macroeconomic problems faced by office, retail and apartment companies and offers stability to the company amid volatility in the market. This is because even amid tough economic conditions, consumers need to spend on healthcare services while curtailing discretionary purchases.

Medical Properties leases facilities to healthcare operating companies. These facilities generally have initial fixed lease terms of at least 15 years, with most including five-year renewal options. More than 99% of its leases provide annual rent escalations based on increases in the CPI and/or fixed minimum annual rent escalations.

Strategic sell-outs provide the company with the dry powder to reinvest in opportunistic developments and redevelopments. Per its fourth quarter 2024 earnings release, MPW sold two post-acute properties in the fourth quarter. In January 2025, it agreed to sell an additional general acute care facility for combined proceeds of approximately $45 million.

Medical Properties has been making efforts to enhance its liquidity position and financial strength. As of Feb. 28, 2025, the company had approximately $1.4 billion of liquidity, including cash on hand and availability under its $1.28 billion revolving credit facility. Moreover, it has effectively addressed all debt maturities through 2026, positioning MPT to pursue a range of shareholder value initiatives in 2025. Its access to diverse capital sources through capital recycling and internal cash flow provides ample financial flexibility and is likely to support its growth endeavors.

Key Risks for MPW

Operator concentration risk, potential tenant bankruptcies and substantial debt burden remain concerns for Medical Properties. Any further reduction in dividend payouts will likely decrease shareholder value.

Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are Welltower WELL and SL Green Realty SLG, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Welltower’s 2025 FFO per share is pegged at $4.93, which indicates year-over-year growth of 14.1%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SL Green’s full-year FFO per share is $5.50, which indicates an increase of 9.3% from the year-ago period.

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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