• 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 »
Biden Administration Wants More SNF Transparency

Biden Administration Wants More SNF Transparency

The Biden administration is at it again. While he had just a passing reference to skilled nursing in his State of the Union address, Joe Biden is back at it now. They are continuing with the mantra that after private equity firms buy nursing homes, the mortality rate increases by 10%. However, they do not say why and what other influences there may be, such as higher acuity rates, which would by definition result in more deaths. Private equity firms always try to get their operators to increase the Medicare census in facilities they purchase because that is where the profits are, not in custodial care Medicaid patients. This is partly why there is an increase in taxpayer spending after a... Read More »
Good News For Ventas, and Seniors Housing

Good News For Ventas, and Seniors Housing

Ventas just released its fourth quarter earnings as well as full-year 2022, and its seniors housing portfolio is looking up. Year-over-year same-community performance improved in all categories. Average occupancy increased by 140 basis points to 82.5%. While this is not a great increase for a 12-month period given the lows they were coming from, we’ll take it. Same-community cash net operating income increased year over year by 19.1% to $150.5 million, and the operating margin expanded by 220 basis points to 24.5%. Now, this is not even close to the old days, but a nice pickup. We believe, however, that these numbers include the various government payments which are going away, so the... Read More »
Good News For Ventas, and Seniors Housing

Baier’s Brookdale Butcher Block

On Friday the 13th (kind of cute, isn’t it), Brookdale Senior Living announced some major C-Suite changes, including the removal of Steven Swain as EVP and CFO effective February 24th, with the current Chief Accounting Officer taking over those roles while remaining the CAO. In addition, Kevin Bowman is out as EVP of Community Operations (basically the COO) effective January 12th. The two division VPs for the East and West will now report directly to CEO Cindy Baier. We are not sure what happened, but this seems a little like blaming these two senior executives for the 50% plunge in Brookdale’s share price as a result of the recent dilutive equity raise. We don’t know where this equity... Read More »
Omega Healthcare Investors Working through It

Omega Healthcare Investors Working through It

Omega Healthcare Investors just provided an operator update, and the REIT will be working through some lingering problems for at least another year, if not longer. Perhaps the biggest problem remains Maplewood Senior Living, a Connecticut-based provider of assisted living and memory care services that is located about 10 miles from our Connecticut HQ. We tried to reach out to the founder several years ago, trying to be “neighborly,” but our efforts were ignored. Maybe they could have received some good advice. The company’s initial developments were on Connecticut’s Gold Coast, in the high-income neighborhoods of Fairfield County. Now, these areas are known to be high-barrier-to-entry... Read More »
Brookdale Senior Living Reports December Occupancy

Brookdale Senior Living Reports December Occupancy

Sometimes no news is good news. After two straight months of declines, Brookdale SeniorLiving reported that December’s month-end occupancy remained flat with November at 78.1%.That can be considered good news since we are in the beginning of what could be a terrible fluand COVID season. In addition, weighted average occupancy remained flat from November to December at 77.0%,after dropping by 20 basis points in November. If they can hold the line for the next threemonths, the company could start to see some improvement in the second quarter. Weightedaverage occupancy peaked in October at 77.2%, while month-end occupancy peaked inSeptember at 78.4%. So far this year, after a dismal 2022,... Read More »
Welltower Controversy?

Welltower Controversy?

Back when Welltower announced its agreement to let health system ProMedica Senior Care off the hook with its leases for 147 nursing facilities, leases that were drowning in red ink for ProMedica, we joked about it because, 1) we had just written that not-for-profit ProMedica’s board could not let the red ink flow for much longer, and 2) the new joint venture partner called Integra was not one of the commonly known “Integras” in senior living or health care, and there are many of them. But we did discover the relationship between Welltower’s Integra and an entity called Perigrove, which claimed to be an institutional investor with years and billions of dollars of investments under its belt.... Read More »