


60 Seconds with Swett: Giving Thanks in 2022
It’s been yet another difficult year for the senior care industry with new curveballs coming from inflation and soaring interest rates and staffing woes continuing to hammer communities’ bottom lines. But on the eve of Thanksgiving, we can still find things to be thankful for in our industry. First and foremost, after more than two years of dealing with the pandemic and in most cases working while masked for their entire shifts, we are thankful to the senior care staff that showed up to work every day and provided great care for seniors. Our industry offers a good career path for millions of people, and thanks to most providers (and inflation), wages also increased in 2022 across the... Read More »
60 Seconds With Steve Monroe: Sonida Senior Living, One Step Forward, But…
In the November issue of The SeniorCare Investor, we raised the question of how long Sonida Senior Living could go with its cash burn rate. Well, the burn rate has decreased, which is good, but they are still not out of the woods. In a case of one step forward, two steps back, weighted average occupancy increased year over year by 270 basis points and by 50 basis points sequentially to 83.7% in the third quarter. Slower than we would want to see, but decent. The problem is that the same-community net operating margin declined by 140 basis points year over year and 100 basis points sequentially to 19.6%. And, RevPOR was up only 2.9% year over year to $3,682. That is not good enough.... Read More »60 Seconds With Steve Monroe: ProMedica Exits Welltower’s SNF Joint Venture
Well, well, well. Three months ago, after reviewing Welltower’s second quarter earnings call, we questioned how long ProMedica Health’s board would continue to subsidize huge operating losses suffered by its subsidiary, ProMedica Senior Care, under its joint venture with Welltower. It turns out, not much longer. Both companies just announced that the 147 nursing facilities, formerly known as the HCR ManorCare portfolio, were being sold to a new joint venture between Welltower and Integra Health (or possibly Integra Healthcare Properties). Not to be confused with California-based Integral Senior Living with more than 100 communities, orIntegraCare with 18 communities in three states, or a... Read More »
60 Seconds With Swett: PE Firms Scrutinize Labor-Intensive Healthcare Deals
I attended the McDermott Will & Emery HPE New York event last week and learned a lot about private equity firms’ healthcare M&A strategies, and how valuations, deal processes, terms and their targeted sectors are changing in a rising interest rate world and in a recession. Healthcare companies are going through many of the same woes as senior care: fraught sponsor/lender relationships, wide bid-ask spreads, increased deal scrutiny from buyers and capital providers. That last one doesn’t sound bad. And there were always the optimistic comments around demographics and healthcare’s recession-resistance. But the general observation was that the party has ended, and the M&A boom of... Read More »