With the 25th annual NIC Conference upon us, the public markets seem to be crashing, and Brookdale Senior Living will be topic number 1.

If you can believe it, this will be my 25th straight NIC annual conference. Yes, every one of them since the first one in Washington, D.C. when there were maybe 500 attendees. I happened to be one of the plenary speakers, giving the state of the skilled nursing market report. The funny thing was, the NIC organizers had to send someone to “check me out” to see if I was legit. Well, I hope over the last 25 years I have been successful in establishing my legitimacy. But you never know.

As we all arrive today in Washington, perhaps the biggest topic will be the plunging stock price of Brookdale Senior Living, not to mention several other providers which have been crashing. At one point on Monday this week, Brookdale had dropped 9% in value to $22.02 per share. That’s a long way from that $45 per share price target that was the consensus thinking for a potential capital event late last year. That’s also a 43% drop from the peak last April. Meanwhile, seniors housing assets continue to sell at premium prices. There seems to be a major disconnect between the public markets and the private market, something we will explore in our October issue. See you this week.