• 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 »
  • Greystone Provides Bridge Financing

    Greystone provided $40.5 million in bridge financing to Kalesta Healthcare Group for the acquisition and refinance of two skilled nursing facilities with 219 beds in Menlo Park and Los Banos, California. The interest-only, non-recourse bridge loan carries a 24-month term with two six-month extension options, enabling Kalesta to complete the... Read More »
Sonida Senior Living Grows For The Future

Sonida Senior Living Grows For The Future

The last to report 2024 earnings in our sector, Sonida Senior Living turned in a decent fourth quarter, but maybe not as good as they were hoping for. They are looking to the future, however, and not past performance, and are gearing up for growth.  While the same-community occupancy of 86.6% in the fourth quarter is certainly above average for the industry, the year-over-year increase of just 70 basis points was below average. Many providers are still putting out census growth numbers that will not be sustainable as communities begin to stabilize, so increasing by 70 basis points in the future will look pretty good. But we are not there yet, especially with new development still way... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Demand for SNFs

60 Seconds with Swett: The Demand for SNFs

We had a fantastic webinar last week that covered our recently published valuation statistics from The Senior Care Acquisition Report but also how valuations, the lending environment and M&A strategies are changing in 2025, so far. Jason Punzel of Senior Living Investment Brokerage, Steve Munn of VIUM Capital and JP LoMonaco of CBRE joined me for the discussion and all had fascinating and useful takeaways on the current state of the market. I ended the webinar with a question about what type of property each panelist would purchase themselves, if they had the equity to finance the rest of the acquisition with debt. Although much of the webinar centered around the seniors housing... Read More »
60-ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: So, What’s Goin’ On?

60-ish Seconds with Steve Monroe: So, What’s Goin’ On?

While I did not make it to the NIC Spring Conference last week, my colleagues Ben and Steph were there to meet and greet the record crowd. The crowd included a lot of smiling faces. Some takeaways included the expectation that liquidity is returning and that we will see bigger deals this year. Also, lenders will be putting out more cash in 2025 than in 2024. All of this bodes well for the M&A market.  There was, however, some concern about what the Trump Administration is doing, and what the impact will be on seniors housing and care. And there should be concern. Even though the labor situation has improved, my guess is that there will be fewer low-wage workers around given some... Read More »
Sonida Senior Living Grows For The Future

Brookdale Bucking Historical Trend

Brookdale Senior Living announced its February occupancy results, and it was better than we expected. Month-end occupancy has now increased for three straight months since November. At the end of February, occupancy was 80.8%, marking the seventh straight month that it has topped 80%, and up 20 basis points from the end of January. As you know, the winter months are usually terrible for census, and this year the strong flu has not helped. But Brookdale has succeeded, nonetheless. Weighted average occupancy in February increased by 10 basis points to 79.3%, and that seems to be stuck in a holding pattern as it has hardly budged for six months. The share price jumped by 3.6% on the news on a... Read More »
Sonida Senior Living Grows For The Future

Activists Are Knocking On Brookdale’s Door

Not to toot our own horn (sorry), but very recently we predicted that Brookdale Senior Living’s growing percentage of owned properties would attract activist investors yet again. That, and the continued poor performance of its share price.  It has now happened, again. Ortelius Advisors, which controls approximately 1.3% of Brookdale’s common stock, announced a slate of candidates for the Board that it will propose at Brookdale’s annual meeting later this year. Ortelius, like many other investors, has grown tired of the unfulfilled promises made and slow turnaround at the company, especially compared with the rest of the industry.  The slate being proposed by Ortelius includes six... 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 »