As most of you have read recently, Walker & Dunlop closed its largest loan ever (almost double the size of its $670 million financing that the company closed earlier in 2015) in the form of a $1.27 billion seven-year adjustable-rate Freddie Mac loan secured by 78 Holiday Retirement independent living properties. The financing, led by Russell Dey and Laura Beaton of W&D, comes out to approximately $144,400 per unit, which if you assume a 75% loan-to-value, is almost identical ($192,500 per unit) to the average price per unit Holiday properties have sold for in the last few years ($193,800 per unit, according to our records). Since 2013 Holiday has sold, in nine transactions, 231 properties, in all of which Holiday stayed on to operate. Considering that, with its five (or so) acquisitions since 2012 and its current over-300-property operating portfolio, we assume that these 78 properties being refinanced represent the last remaining Holiday-owned communities. Could this be the sign of an impending sale of the company by Fortress Investment Group, which purchased Holiday in 2006 for $6.6 billion, or $188,600 per unit? After nearly 10 years of ownership, maybe.
Reading the Holiday tea leaves
