As always, it was great to see so many of our industry friends, and plenty of new faces, at the NIC Conference in Chicago last week. And typical of most conferences, many asked us what we thought the mood of the conference was. We wondered if it would be at all better than the grim 2022 Fall conference when the capital markets had fundamentally shifted for the worse. Unfortunately, we cannot say it was better than that.
With the 10-year Treasury rate touching 5% at the start of the conference and consistent signals from the Fed that interest rates would be “higher, for longer,” any hope for an improving capital markets environment unleashing a flood of financings and M&A (at higher values) in 2024 vanished. Comments from former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Welltower CEO Shankh Mitra pushing out the recovery to at least 2025 did not buoy the optimists in the room either.
It’s tough to argue with that sort of realism, in the operational environment too, but perhaps if more buyers, sellers and lenders come down to Earth and accept the current market dynamics, there can be more productive discussions around deals, and hopefully more transaction activity too. We’ll elaborate on our thoughts on NIC and the current state of the market in the next issue of The SeniorCare Investor, to be published in early November. Check it out, and let us know what you think.
