• 60 Seconds with Swett: The Problem with CMS Interpretive Guidelines

    Just a day after we highlighted the potential downsides of overregulation of assisted living from the federal level, a case of regulatory overreach involving a nursing home just headed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District in hopes of overturning a $1.8 million civil monetary penalty. Without getting into the minutiae too much, the... Read More »
  • Kayne Anderson Fund Tops Target

    The familiar refrain continues, with more capital continuing to flow into the seniors housing industry, property prices should keep rising. Kayne Anderson Real Estate, the real estate private equity arm of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P., has closed the largest opportunistic equity fund in its history, at more than 70% above its initial... Read More »
  • Well-Performing Full-Continuum Community Sells

    Blueprint announced its role in the sale of Morningstar at Golden Ridge, a seniors housing community in Peoria, Arizona (Phoenix MSA). Built in 2019, the community has 38 independent living, 65 assisted living and 35 memory care units. It is nearly fully occupied. The community is one of the newest and most well-appointed assets within a... Read More »
  • Kaplan Development Divests to Cedarwood Group

    Cedarwood Group closed its acquisition of Saranac Village at Will Rogers, a 75-unit independent living community in Saranac Lake, New York. The seller was Kaplan Development Group, which took over Will Rogers after the first year of it being open as a senior living community. The community was originally built in 1928 as a Tudor-style... Read More »
  • Omega Welcomes New CEO and CFO

    Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc.’s President, Matthew Gourmand will become the REIT’s Chief Executive Officer in conjunction with the planned retirement of Taylor Pickett, effective October 1, 2026. Pickett will also step down from the Board of Directors upon his retirement, and the Board of Directors intends to appoint Gourmand to the Board,... Read More »
Shazam: Welltower Outperforms in Q3

Shazam: Welltower Outperforms in Q3

We figured that Welltower’s seniors housing operating portfolio (SHOP) would continue to improve after the second quarter, but let’s just say the improvement was better than we thought it would be, and probably better than most everyone else thought as well. On a same-community basis, SHOP occupancy surged by 120 basis points sequentially to 81.7%, and by 220 basis points year over year. The always-strong third quarter was good to them. Occupancy, however, was not the highlight. Same-community SHOP revenues increased year over year by 9.8% while operating expenses increased by just 5.1%. It makes sense that the spread between RevPOR and ExPOR should widen as census grows above 80%. This... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Gloom Prevails at the NIC Conference

60 Seconds with Swett: Gloom Prevails at the NIC Conference

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... Read More »
LTC Properties Comes Out with Q3 Earnings

LTC Properties Comes Out with Q3 Earnings

LTC Properties came out with its third quarter earnings on October 26, and the REIT’s loan origination program, which grew at a time when making acquisitions did not make as much financial sense, is continuing to pay off. Q3 net income was boosted by higher interest income from a variety of sources. There was financing receivables due to the acquisition of 11 assisted living/memory care communities in the first quarter of 2023 and three skilled nursing facilities in the third quarter of 2022. Higher interest income also came from mortgage loan originations in Q1:23 and a $17.0 million mezzanine loan origination in Q3:23. An affiliate of Galerie Living received that loan to recapitalize and... Read More »
Ensign’s Q3:23 Earnings Are Released

Ensign’s Q3:23 Earnings Are Released

The Ensign Group came out with its third quarter earnings on October 25, and the results were mostly positive. GAAP diluted earnings per share rose 12.1% over the previous third quarter to $1.11. However, that was off $0.01 compared with the second quarter. On an adjusted basis, EPS rose to $1.20 in Q3:23, up 15.4% from Q3:22 and up 3.4% from Q2:23. The company’s share price dropped by just 0.7% on a down day for the market.  Adjusted EBITDAR also increased to $158.4 million for the third quarter, or $633.6 million on an annualized basis. Revenues soared from $770 million in Q3:22 to $940.8 million in Q3:23 on the back of higher reimbursement, new acquisitions and increased census.... Read More »
LTC Properties Comes Out with Q3 Earnings

All Charges Against Silverado Dropped

In a case that never should have been charged, by an overzealous district attorney in California (of course), all charges against Silverado Memory Care, its employees and its CEO, Loren Shook, have been dismissed. The only thing we wonder is, what took them so long? Other than the fact that this never should have happened. Multiple felony counts of elder endangerment and of violations causing death, and this in the first few months of COVID, when even the CDC was clueless about the disease? This should have been dropped months ago, but we suppose it had to be played out. We hope that this will be a lesson to other, overzealous DAs who want to make a name for themselves, that they should... Read More »
Distinctive Living Enters Tennessee Market

Distinctive Living Enters Tennessee Market

With the capital markets still dissuading many buyers from getting into the M&A market, we have seen more growth through the addition of new management contracts among many operators in the senior care industry. One company, Distinctive Living, expanded its portfolio to Tennessee after assuming management of The Village at Bellevue, an assisted living/memory care community in Nashville. The community features 69 AL and 18 MC units and marks Distinctive’s entry into the state. Distinctive has existing and to-be-built locations in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. There are studio, one-bedroom and... Read More »