• A Message from Steve Monroe on Brookdale: Brookdale CEO Is Out

    While President Trump had a busy weekend changing course on some of his tariffs, the Board of Brookdale Senior Living was busy as well. After serving as CEO of Brookdale for just over eight years, and as CFO for three years before that, Cindy Baier is out as CEO and Board member effective April 13. The share price initially jumped by 10% on the... Read More »
  • Land & Buildings Targets National Health Investors

    It seems to be the season for activist investors not happy with investment values, but these days, who is happy unless you shorted the entire market on March 31? In addition to what is happening with Brookdale Senior Living, Land & Buildings, no stranger to the senior care industry, has put forward a few board candidates for National Health... Read More »
  • Skyline Healthcare Update

    Skyline Healthcare’s Joseph Schwartz finally was sentenced for his crimes against the U.S., his employees and his residents. It seems, however, that the punishment does not fit the crime. Sentenced to three years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, plus a $100,000 fine, just does not seem to be enough for what he did. We have... Read More »
  • CreativCap Closes Two Financings

    CreativCap secured debt for two clients, including a bridge loan and a lifeco refinance. The $53 million bridge loan was closed on behalf of a new client, Inspired Living, and facilitated the refinancing of two assisted living/memory care communities. Each community consisted of 127 units (81 AL and 46 MC), with one located in Florida and the... Read More »
  • CIBC Refinances Improving AL Community

    CIBC Bank USA provided a $17.5 million term loan to refinance a 67-unit assisted living community in Oregon. The community has been operated by the owner for over a year, and it caters towards residents with behavioral needs. Performance has trended well over the last 12 months through occupancy improvements (75% in Q4:23 to over 90% currently)... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: DOGE, The Budget and Healthcare Spending

60 Seconds with Swett: DOGE, The Budget and Healthcare Spending

DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, has been making the biggest splash in Washington, D.C. these days in terms of attention-grabbing headlines, and it appears it will try to target waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid spending as part of its efforts. Such a move could have a major impact on thousands of facilities’ bottom lines and could change how SNFs do business if reimbursement rates are affected.  That is a major dark cloud hanging over the industry, but there are way too many unknowns to even properly prepare for what’s to come. Because, what is to come? Would DOGE’s efforts go beyond just “waste, fraud and abuse,” which should be rooted out? Will the... Read More »
60ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: The Coming Seniors Housing Shortage?

60ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: The Coming Seniors Housing Shortage?

The Wall Street Journal just came out with a story about the coming seniors housing shortage. Unfortunately, it started with misinformation, when it stated that “seniors housing has been one of the biggest disappointments for commercial real estate investors.” In some periods yes, but in other periods not at all, when it has had outsized returns and beat the other sectors. It is all about context, and the writer should have known better. The story may, however, generate some investment interest. We are glad that occupancy has reached pre-pandemic levels, but we really need to get to 2017 levels to be happy. Remember, back in October 2020 we did the analysis and concluded it would take at... Read More »
60ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: The Coming Seniors Housing Shortage?

60-ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: Becoming a Statistic

I became an industry statistic last week, although not intentionally. While returning from the annual ASHA meeting in Phoenix last Wednesday, I developed a slight cough just before takeoff, which turned into a full-blown cough by landing. The next day I went to my PCP to get some drugs, and tested negative for flu, COVID and RSV.  By late Friday afternoon, I was miserable. My daughter happened to be home, and seeing me struggle up the stairs, then fall at the top, unable to get up or even roll over, and then drag me into my bedroom, she made a call to a health care provider. The provider videochatted with me for less than a minute and then told my daughter to call 911 immediately. The... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: DOGE, The Budget and Healthcare Spending

60 Seconds with Swett: Rising Treasuries and Senior Care M&A

Momentum in the M&A market has continued into 2025, and there is general optimism that the new Administration that descended on Washington this week will be good for the business environment. Although there is some uncertainty around what, if any, tariffs are enacted and whether their effect on prices would potentially be blunted by falling energy costs and efficiency efforts, assuming “drill baby drill” and “DOGE” have a near-immediate effect. And we don’t know about the scale of the deportations and its impact on wages. However, if M&A activity started to take off last year due to the expectation of lower interest rates, then what effect will the 10-Year Treasury rate shooting... Read More »

60 Seconds with Swett: 2025 Set for Healthcare M&A Growth

The word from the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, which kicked off in San Francisco this week, is that M&A activity in the biopharma/life sciences space will likely grow in 2025 after a relative downturn in 2024. A more business-friendly administration in D.C. combined with an enormous amount of dry powder set to do deals, including some bigger billion-dollar-plus ones too. Indeed, our own M&A data from LevinPro HC, which tracks all the healthcare services and tech deals, showed the 2024 total decline to just under 2,000 deals for the year, a 10% decrease from 2023’s activity and a 19% decrease from 2022’s. Dollar volume also dropped below $200 billion in total disclosed purchase... Read More »
60ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: The Coming Seniors Housing Shortage?

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: First off, Happy New Year Everyone.

I suspect many of you think I am going to talk about the record setting M&A year in 2024 for long-term care, but I believe Ben has fully covered that and will continue to do so in the coming weeks as the stats are finalized. Plus, he now knows more than I do on the topic. No. I am going to talk about a book I just read, called The Big 100 by William Kole. All we have heard about for years, even decades, is the growth in the 80+ and 85+ population and what it will do for the seniors housing industry. This book is about the 100+ population, called centenarians, and super-centenarians, those who have attained 110 years and older. The centenarian group is the fastest growing age cohort,... Read More »