60 Seconds with Swett: Private Equity Ownership in Health Care
We have long been tired of the often-inaccurate claims of “private equity’s takeover of the nursing home industry” and the too-simplistic or misleading correlations between PE ownership and quality of care. Of course there are never any mentions of the need for SNF owners to make a profit or the benefits of fresh capital injections into the industry and into aging physical plants. We have also written several times that, according to our data, PE firms have only been the buyers in about 5% of SNF deals, a share that has actually shrunk in the last couple of years. Seniors housing was higher, above 10% of acquisitions, but a study done by our sister site LevinPro HC shows that several... Read More »
Fast-Growing SNF Operator Files for IPO
There may be a new publicly traded senior care company on the horizon, as PACS Group, a Utah-based skilled nursing operator with more than 200 facilities in its current portfolio, filed for an initial public offering with the SEC on March 13. It plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol PACS. The company is barely 10 years old but has grown its reach to nine states, serves more than 20,000 patients daily and reported $3.1 billion of total revenue in 2023. NOI in 2023 reached $112.9 million, while adjusted EBITDA was $276.5 million. It also has about $732 million of debt on its books. As recently as 2020, the company only had 65 facilities in its portfolio, so the bulk of its acquisitions... Read More »
Steady As She Goes For Chartwell
Chartwell Retirement Residences, the largest operator of seniors housing in Canada, posted a slight 20-basis point decline in census in February, to 85.5%. They are forecasting no drop for March and a 20-basis point rise for April. If that holds, they will escape the winter census blues, and the December to April period would end up showing an 80 basis-point increase. Chartwell had a remarkable run in 2023, with occupancy increasing by 520 basis points, certainly an above-average jump for 12 months, especially a few years after the bottom. They are expecting rate increases in 2024 to average 5%, and same-community margins to increase by about 400 basis points in 2024 to 38%, from 34% in... Read More »
Brookdale Census Holds Steady So Far
We all know that historically the winter months have never been kind to nursing home census. Known as the flu season, occupancy tends to drop in the first quarter by 50 to 100 basis points, if not more. The same has been true for assisted living, especially since acuity levels started rising more than a decade ago. The one exception for some providers was during the pandemic recovery, when census was ramping up at unprecedented rates in general, and the flu was nothing compared with COVID. Brookdale Senior Living just announced its February occupancy results, and while they noted it was an improvement from “normal” pre-pandemic seasonality, first quarter-to-date occupancy declined by 40... Read More »
Recovery Continues at Sabra Health Care REIT
After all the earnings reports for the fourth quarter 2023, we think it is safe to say the industry really has moved on from the pandemic. Not that the lasting effects have disappeared, as they may be with us for the rest of the decade, but most everyone seems to be getting back to “normal,” although at a different pace for each one. Sabra Health Care REIT is one of those that can safely be said to be on the safe side of the pandemic. With its fourth quarter earnings, it put out earnings guidance for 2024 for the first time since 2020. Like everyone else, Sabra and its tenants still have a way to go, but most everything is moving in the right direction. What we like is that the lease... Read More »Schedule a demo
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