Pressure on Brookdale To Pump Up Value

A dissident shareholder has emerged trying to pressure Brookdale Senior Living to monetize its real estate assets. With Brookdale Senior Living’s weak fourth quarter earnings announcement came the dissident shareholder response from Sandell Asset Management. They want Brookdale to monetize the value of the real estate owned to boost the share price by nearly 35%, taking advantage of higher REIT valuations. Sorry, but it just isn’t that easy. Sandell’s proposal is to spin out the real estate, most likely in a new REIT in a tax-free distribution to shareholders. Well, that’s fine, but if it sale/leasebacks on 35,000 units, what about those rent escalators on such a large portfolio? Would it... Read More »

Kindred Completes Gentiva Acquisition

With $7.2 billion in annual revenues, Kindred Healthcare is the largest post-acute provider in the country, but now the hard work begins. This past Monday, Kindred Healthcare closed on its $1.8 billion acquisition of home health and hospice provider Gentiva Health Services. With this completed, Kindred is entering a pivotal period in its corporate life because it has all the parts to run a true nationwide post-acute company, from hospital discharge to the home. It is the largest LTAC and inpatient rehab operator in the country, the largest provider of rehab, home health and hospice services in the country, and one of the largest subacute and skilled nursing providers. You might think that... Read More »

Seniors Housing Portfolio in New England Sells For Top Price

Nine properties in three states sell for over $500,000 per unit, more than doubling in value in 10 years. Patient capital in seniors housing can certainly reap its rewards. Take the case of Boston-based Intercontinental Real Estate, which purchased nine senior living communities in New England from BayNorth Capital in 2005 for approximately $225,000 per unit. The one constant in the portfolio was Benchmark Senior Living, which was a minority co-investor with BayNorth and managed the portfolio. With the sale in 2005, they remained as the manager, and also stayed in as a co-investor. The portfolio has now been sold again, but for about $521,000 per unit. Individual properties have sold at a... Read More »

Ventas Closes ARC Deal

American Realty Capital Healthcare Trust shareholders trade their shares for Ventas shares. At the end of last week, Ventas closed on its acquisition of American Realty Capital Healthcare Trust. The deal was first announced last June 2 as a stock-for-stock transaction valued at about $2.6 billion, with up to 10% of the ARC shares redeemable for cash. At the time, Ventas was trading at about $66 per share, but its shares have increased by almost 17% to $77 since then. Fewer than one million shares of ARC took the cash option, with almost all shareholders taking the Ventas stock. And why not? The shares had appreciated, Ventas has a growing dividend, interest rates aren’t going anywhere... Read More »

Occupancy Increases in 4th Quarter

Assisted living and independent living occupancy rates continue to increase. It’s always nice to start the New Year with a little good news, and the good news I am talking about is the sequential and year-over-year increases in occupancy rates across seniors housing. The NIC MAP data has shown the largest increases to be in independent living, which makes sense since there are fewer new units coming on stream. The odd thing from the data is that occupancy levels in the primary 31 markets averages about 40 to 50 basis points lower than the other 68 markets covered by NIC MAP. A similar phenomenon exists with construction starts as a percentage of supply. In the top 31 markets, trailing... Read More »