Earlier this week, Larry Cohen announced the formation of his new company, Trustwell Living, LLC. As most of you know, Larry was the CEO of Capital Senior Living (CSU) for about 20 years. What you may not know is that he was very popular with his team, from EDs to the C-suite. It looks like those relationships have held, as several former CSU employees are putting their trust in Larry and joining forces once again. 

This includes Greg Boemer, who spent 15 years at CSU, the last four as VP of Operations, who will be SVP of Operations. Then there is Colleen Honnors who was with the company from 2013 to 2020 as National Quality and Clinical Director, and will have the same title with Trustwell. Finally, he has brought on to run marketing someone who left CSU in 2017 after 16 years in marketing. Talk about coming home. That is a great way to get started, with everyone knowing each other. In addition, former EDs have been calling wanting to be hired when they make their first acquisitions. 

Speaking of that, Cohen has been looking at a lot of deals, from small to good size portfolios. While we are sure it might make sense for the first transaction to be sizeable as the “platform” deal, he said it does not have to be. And, he will buy stabilized and turnarounds. But he is really only looking in the central part of the country and the East Coast. No high-priced acquisitions in California for Trustwell. 

He almost did a 24-property portfolio at the beginning of last year, but the pandemic caused everyone to hit the pause button. Then last September/October the same thing with a different seller, who also hit the pause button. That has happened a lot in the past nine months. But he is confident that at least one target he is looking at will pan out. The pricing, however, has to make sense. The one deal that everyone thought he would want to pursue is his former company, Capital Senior Living. While he has not outright said no, again, the price would have to make sense, and right now there is not a price above the current market price that would make sense, even though the current equity value is just $36 million, which is double what it was last November.  

Trustwell does have a financial partner, which will be disclosed later, and he is not worried about accessing the needed capital to close any deals, big or small. We questioned why he would want to start all over at the age of 67 (not being ageist, just wondering, because as all of you know, it is not easy). We could not fault his answer. He loves the business, he had been so excited about launching Trustwell that he couldn’t sleep sometimes, and he has the same passion and enthusiasm he had during his 20 years at Capital Senior Living. That certainly came out in our conversation. So, brokers, bring him your deals and let’s see what happens. And it would not surprise us if someone from Capital Senior Living’s board whispered in his ear, “have we got a deal for you,” as hard as that might be for them to swallow. Not to start any rumors.