• October Kicks Off with Multiple Financings

    VIUM Capital announced a slew of closings at the start of October, ranging from HUD refinances to acquisition loans. The largest was a $72 million bride loan that refinanced four skilled nursing facilities in Pennsylvania totaling 525 beds. Proceeds will be used to take out senior debt and senior mezzanine debt. The facility will be structured as... Read More »
  • Newmark Negotiates Several Large Financings

    Sarah Anderson of Newmark has closed some notable financing transactions in the last couple of months, in addition to arranging acquisition financing for numerous deals handled by the Newmark investment sales team. One of the closings was for Vivante at Turtle Creek, a to-be-built seniors housing community on the prestigious Turtle Creek... Read More »
  • Funding Arranged for Skilled Nursing Clients

    MONTICELLOAM, LLC, a specialized multifamily and seniors housing bridge lending platform, announced a couple of financings for skilled nursing clients in New England and North Carolina. First, for eight skilled nursing facilities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the firm closed a $70 million senior bridge loan with a 24-month initial term. It... Read More »
  • Newly Constructed Community Secures Financing

    BWE arranged refinancing for Clarendale Arcadia, a newly constructed senior living community in the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona. The financing was arranged on behalf of a repeat client joint venture between Harrison Street Asset Management, LCS, and Ryan Companies US, Inc., with LCS serving as the operator. Ryan Stoll, National... Read More »
  • Brookdale Shares Hit Seven-Year High

    Brookdale Senior Living has posted occupancy increases for several consecutive months. The operator has lagged behind the industry for a decade now, so it is about time.  Weighted average occupancy has increased each month since January, beginning at 79.2% and reaching 82.5% in September. The third quarter’s average of 81.8% is up 290 basis... Read More »
Is Remote Work Really Impacting Occupancy?

Is Remote Work Really Impacting Occupancy?

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal last week that claimed there is a relationship between soft occupancies in seniors housing and more people working from home. The gist of it was that with more people working remotely full time, or even part time, they are better able to check on mom or dad who might otherwise be thinking about moving into seniors housing, and postponing the move because the kids are more involved. The first problem is that this assumes that the kids live nearby, and the reality is that many of their parents have already moved to warmer climates. The second problem is that it is much more than the need to “check” in on them. If they really need a... Read More »
Brookdale’s Occupancy Continues to Lag Industry

Brookdale’s Occupancy Continues to Lag Industry

Brookdale Senior Living reported its June occupancy levels this week, and while there were increases, those increases lag the increases for the overall industry, and absolute levels of occupancy also continue to lag behind the industry. Weighted average June occupancy was 76.8%, 20 basis points above May but 10 basis points below the occupancy rate last September. That is not progress, even acknowledging that the first half of the year is usually bad for census. Management observed that this was a 160-basis point increase over June 2022. While looking back a year is nice, let’s hope when they do it again in October that they are not showing a small 50-basis point increase year over year.... Read More »
Is Remote Work Really Impacting Occupancy?

60 Seconds with Monroe: SNF Industry Needs To Police Itself

As many of you would suspect, I am no fan of New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James. She politicizes too many things and definitely has a partisan agenda, and one which I do not favor. But after reading through the 300-page court filing against Centers Health Care and related companies, as well as its owners, well, I found myself agreeing with her. The cases involve the poor “care” of residents in a few New York nursing homes, as well as the alleged misuse of $83 million of Medicaid and Medicare funds for other purposes, including, allegedly, the purchase of a large stake in the Israeli airline, EL AL. Money is fungible, and one cannot distinguish between cash from private... Read More »
Sonida Senior Living Gets New Life

Sonida Senior Living Gets New Life

It is well known that the recovery from the pandemic is taking longer than many had expected, and that after the initial surge in occupancies starting in the second quarter of 2021 the rate of growth has slowed, even with the recent suppression of new construction and openings. All of this is impacting the capital markets, especially as interest rates keep rising. We have repeatedly stated that the industry needs to fix its capital structure. The logjam of borrowers and creditors fighting and not coming to terms that are workable for both sides needs to burst. TPG Capital and Sabra Health Care REIT could not come to any agreement with Fannie Mae over $485 million in debt on their Enlivant... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Q2:23 M&A Activity Rebounds Above 100 Transactions

60 Seconds with Swett: Q2:23 M&A Activity Rebounds Above 100 Transactions

The M&A market rebounded, sort of, in the second quarter of 2023, rising to 110 publicly announced transactions, compared with 99 in the first quarter. Considering the economic shock of fast-rising interest rates, and how many deals died in all stages of the transaction pipeline last fall, the volume was actually impressive. Most of the dealmakers we talk to say that their pipelines are healthy, albeit moving slower and with more difficulty than before. We are still way down from the 147 transactions recorded in the second quarter of 2022, which annualized would have resulted in nearly 600 deals for the year. But a lot has changed in a year, clearly.  We are missing the larger... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Supreme Court Decision Hits Public SNFs

60 Seconds with Swett: Supreme Court Decision Hits Public SNFs

So much of the ire against skilled nursing facilities (personal, political and in the media) has been directed towards privately-owned facilities, and mainly their ownership those they deem as “private equity”, because of their great sin of caring for nursing home patients at a profit, and often not even at one. However, a recent Supreme Court ruling is now opening up public SNFs to the threat of lawsuits on the basis of civil rights violations. After the wife of a patient with dementia in a county-owned SNF in Indiana sued alleging he was unnecessarily chemically restrained and  involuntarily transferred without their consent, which would be violations of the Federal Nursing Home Reform... Read More »