60 Seconds with Swett: The Fight between Brookdale and Ortelius
It has been a bit amusing to see both Brookdale Senior Living and Ortelius Advisors claim victory with Institutional Shareholder Services’ report on the upcoming July 11th stockholders vote on the new slate of directors for the Board. For Ortelius, ISS recommended voting for Steven Vick and Lori Wittman, two of the six nominees that Ortelius put forth in March, while also acknowledging the benefit of Ortelius’s efforts on initiating needed change at Brookdale. Meanwhile, Brookdale rejoiced at ISS effectively recommending that shareholders’ not hand control of the Board to Ortelius by only supporting two of the six nominees and pointing out Ortelius’s lack of details in the turnaround plan... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: HUD’s Express Lane and M&A
We’re not used to sensible reforms coming out of Washington, D.C., but HUD has just come out with a new “Express Lane” for the Section 232 Residential Care Facilities program. Obviously, we don’t want any facilities or borrowers that shouldn’t receive a loan to slip through the cracks, not that you can always predict a future disaster. But so many HUD loan processes sought by repeat-borrowers are a foregone conclusion, and we think with the guardrails in place, this is a great idea. Those guardrails apply to the loan terms, the facility quality and the borrower itself. Also, all of the criteria have to be met to qualify. Some of the highlights include a maximum 70% loan-to-value, minimum... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: May M&A Activity Slumps
Earlier this year, M&A activity was continuing at a record pace after 2024 finished with 714 deals for the year, an annual record by far. February, March and April all exceeded 60 transactions each, peaking in March with 69 deals and average 780 annualized deals across that three-month period. But we were a little surprised when dealmaking plummeted in May to 46 transactions, the lowest monthly total since February 2024. Looking at only U.S. deals, the decline has been steadier, going from 57 deals in March to 46 in April to 35 in May, the lowest domestic monthly total since September 2023. Dealmaking is always cyclical, with waves of listings and closings ebbing and flowing. And we’ve... Read More »
60ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: For Sale
From the title of this, I am sure you thought I was going to talk about some seniors housing community or company for sale. But no, unfortunately, I am talking about the Oval Office being for sale, and it is disgusting. Although he is not the only President to pardon criminals and tax cheats, there seems to be more of a pattern with Donald J. Trump, as it pertains to our industry. It started in his first term when he commuted the 15-year sentence of Jon Harder, the founder and CEO of Sunwest Management, who in the 1990s and 2000s built up a huge portfolio of seniors housing communities, overpaying for most of them along the way. But it all came crumbling down when his lenders decided... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Brookdale Senior Living and SWAT
Brookdale Senior Living announced it had recently formed SWAT teams to deal with its lowest-occupancy buildings to try to get them over the 80% hump, and there are a lot of them. Since then, the term SWAT team has been appearing more and more with other providers. SWAT is a scary term, and stands for Special Weapons and Tactics, and in law enforcement is used to deal with barricaded persons, active shooting scenes and high-risk search warrants. Not exactly something we want to be associated with trying to get customers into senior living. But I understand the intent. The other frequently used term is the “silver tsunami” about to hit us. Again, a tsunami is extremely destructive,... Read More »Schedule a demo
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