• 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 »
Skilled Nursing Values Drop In Last Four Quarters

Skilled Nursing Values Drop In Last Four Quarters

It still may be too early to tell, but according to our rolling-four quarter M&A statistics, it appears that skilled nursing values have started their descent in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We say it may be too early simply because of how few transactions have been negotiated and closed since the onset of the virus, and we base our statistics on closed transactions, not just announced ones. The rolling-four quarter average also still consists of three quarters of prices that were not affected by the pandemic and that represent a larger share of the past 12 months of deals than normal because of the dearth of deals in Q2:2020.   Nevertheless, the average price... Read More »
Skilled Nursing Values Drop In Last Four Quarters

Second Quarter Healthcare M&A Drops

The decline in second quarter healthcare M&A probably won’t surprise many of our readers. The second quarter was the first full quarter of healthcare M&A in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, and deal making took a hit as a result, as shown in results from our Deal Search Online database. Compared with Q1:20, Q2:20 dropped 20%, with 322 transactions on the books. Compared with Q2:19 (486 transactions), deal volume in Q2:20 declined even further at 34%.   Source: Health Care M&A, July 2020 Long-Term Care and Physician Medical Groups were among the hardest hit sectors, declining 40% and 50% in activity compared with Q1:20, respectively. Year-over-year, the difference... Read More »
Average Seniors Housing Occupancy Falls To Record-Low

Average Seniors Housing Occupancy Falls To Record-Low

The latest occupancy figures are out from NIC, and we suppose it could have been worse. Seniors housing communities reported that their census dropped on average by 280 basis points in the second quarter of 2020, from 87.7% to 84.5%. That is the lowest level ever recorded since NIC started reporting this data 14 years ago. Separating the market out, assisted living communities experienced a steeper decline, from 85.3% to 82.1% during the quarter, while independent living, which was in better health as a sector going into the pandemic, fell 240 basis points to 87.4%. Given the longer lengths of stay and the younger, healthier residents in independent living, that makes sense. Being a more... Read More »
One Small Provider Tackles The Coronavirus, And Performs

One Small Provider Tackles The Coronavirus, And Performs

As we all know by now, the coronavirus has been impacting providers very differently. Some not-for-profits have been spared, while others have suffered greatly. The very large national providers have seen surges in positive cases and deaths in some of their buildings, while other buildings they operate have been completely spared. Was senior management doing something different in the spared buildings? Probably not, but often times it can be the local management team, and just as often with this pandemic, it can just be a matter of luck.  Small providers, especially those with hands-on senior management, seem to have fared reasonably well from conversations we have had. Were they in... Read More »
Q2 Senior Care M&A Falls To Seven-Year Low

Q2 Senior Care M&A Falls To Seven-Year Low

Well, we can’t say we aren’t surprised. COVID-19 and the economic ramifications stemming from social distancing and quarantine measures took a toll on seniors housing and care M&A, leaving the sector with just 59 publicly announced transactions in the second quarter. Back in early April, we said the second quarter’s deal total would be low and wondered if we’d even get to 50 transactions. Even though we did surpass that level, a closer look at the deals reveals an even bleaker market.  The decline in activity is made even more stark after an unprecedented level of deal-making in 2019, with 450 total transactions (not including scores more that were... Read More »
Recession Resistant Assisted Living? The Audience Speaks

Recession Resistant Assisted Living? The Audience Speaks

When the seniors housing industry emerged from the Great Recession, it quickly became apparent that it performed well during that economic downturn, especially when compared against other “real estate” asset classes, and especially the assisted living sub-sector. It became known as “recession resistant,” something that made a lot of investors happy.   Now that we have officially entered into the first recession since the Great Recession, we thought it was a good time to talk with industry leaders and get their take on whether assisted living would once again be recession resistant, even though it would be a very different kind of recession.  Last week we hosted... Read More »