• 60 Seconds with Swett: Navigating the Next Five Years in Seniors Housing M&A

    Are we entering the golden age of seniors housing? Next year, the first baby boomers will start turning 80, and with the current lack of new construction, occupancy rates are already rising before the real demographic wave hits. Many investors, both veterans and those new to our space, will feel pressure to grow their seniors housing holdings to... Read More »
  • Blackstone Sheds Another Asset from Its Seniors Housing Portfolio

    Blueprint handled a couple of sales in Florida and Nevada. The first in Florida involved a global private equity firm selling a 145-unit assisted living and memory care community in Boca Raton, Florida. Ben Firestone, Dillon Rudy and Jacob Ghel of Blueprint facilitated The Atrium at Boca Raton’s ownership transfer. The community presented certain... Read More »
  • CareTrust REIT Establishes SHOP Platform

    Three Texas seniors housing communities with 270 assisted living and memory care units were acquired by CareTrust REIT, Inc. The publicly traded REIT purchased the communities for $40 million, or $148,100 per unit. This marks the first investment of CareTrust’s SHOP platform. The communities were 86% occupied at the time of acquisition and will... Read More »
  • Ensign Grows Through Separate Transactions in Three States

    The Ensign Group, Inc. increased its portfolio through three separate acquisitions in Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. The publicly traded provider expanded its growing Midwest footprint through its Kansas acquisition of the real estate and operations of Willow Point Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a 45-bed skilled nursing facility in Kansas... Read More »
  • Developer/Operator Divests to PE Firm

    A developer and operator sold Rivertown Ridge, a Class-A seniors housing community in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, Michigan, to a private equity firm. This community, built in 2020, features 152 units of independent living, assisted living and memory care, and has exhibited strong performance.  The seller, Redstone Homes, was... Read More »
Ventas Posts Decent Q1 Earnings

Ventas Posts Decent Q1 Earnings

Ventas came out with its first quarter earnings at the end of April, and although the results were decent, it may not have been the best timing to follow the strong quarter posted by Welltower earlier this week, as Ventas’s stock price tumbled 6.4% seemingly because the REIT affirmed its full-year guidance rather than increased it. By contrast, Welltower raised guidance and its stock price jumped 3.5% on the news. Ventas provided commentary on guidance for 2025 normalized FFO per share, outlining that it benefited from NOI growth in the SHOP segment and from accretive seniors housing investment activity in 2024 and expected in 2025. But it was partially offset by the impact of higher net... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Is on a Roll

60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Is on a Roll

Welltower came out with its first quarter earnings on Tuesday, and surprise, surprise, it was yet another great quarter, and its share price jumped 3.5% immediately upon the news. It was the tenth consecutive quarter in which same store SHOP NOI growth exceeded 20%, at 21.7% in the first quarter. Guidance for same store NOI growth also rose by 100 basis points to a midpoint of 19.0% for FY2025. On Tuesday’s call, Welltower did mention that SHOP margins remain below pre-pandemic levels, but they may not be for long. Also, that issue currently plagues thousands of communities in this country and was prevalent in the years before COVID too. Perhaps that is why most of what we hear from... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: April Already Passes 50 Transactions

60 Seconds with Swett: April Already Passes 50 Transactions

Tariff turmoil? Volatile and still-high interest rates? Uncertainty surrounding Medicaid spending, labor costs and HUD’s queue length? Seniors housing and care dealmakers have looked past a lot of this noise to announce 50 transactions in the first three weeks of the second quarter, putting the market on track for the busiest M&A period ever. We know we sound like a broken record, but the start of April did feel like we reached a new level of activity, and given the conversations we’ve been having in the last few weeks, the second and third quarters may only accelerate in deal volume. For some sellers, seeing through the January 2025 rate increases was enough to enter the transaction... Read More »
A Message from Steve Monroe on Brookdale: Brookdale CEO Is Out

A Message from Steve Monroe on Brookdale: Brookdale CEO Is Out

While President Trump had a busy weekend changing course on some of his tariffs, the Board of Brookdale Senior Living was busy as well. After serving as CEO of Brookdale for just over eight years, and as CFO for three years before that, Cindy Baier is out as CEO and Board member effective April 13. The share price initially jumped by 10% on the news.  This does not come as a surprise as the company has struggled financially during most of, if not all of, her tenure. To be fair, she inherited a lot of problems from her predecessor, Andy Smith, including expensive leases, a very bad acquisition and too many buildings. And then two years after she became CEO, the pandemic hit. We are not sure... Read More »
Ventas Posts Decent Q1 Earnings

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 Investors.  It seems they are not happy with the current board composition and believe there are a few conflicts of interest between board members who own NHI shares as well as shares of NHI’s major tenant, National Healthcare Corporation. L&B believes that the lease payments from NHC are too low, and that with an increase it would benefit... Read More »