


Q1 M&A Activity Falls Below 100 Deals
For the first time since the first quarter of 2018, quarterly seniors housing and care deals dropped below 100 in Q1:2020, to 93 deals. Averaging 31 deals per month is not too shabby, but compared with the red-hot M&A market of 2019, when 450 deals were publicly announced and likely over 600 were actually completed, it is a significant decline. Not surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic had a large part to play in the slowdown, but not as much as you may think in the first quarter. After all, large swaths of the U.S. economy were not shut down until mid-March, and deals that closed after that were all-but-completed by the time businesses shut their doors. They just needed a little nudge... Read More »
Senior Care M&A Spending Hits Highest Level Since 2014
Total dollar volume did not break any records in 2019, but it was still the third-highest annual total ever recorded, and the highest since 2014 according to our just-published Senior Care Acquisition Report, 25th Edition. And that was without a single deal in the top-16 prices seen in the sector (2006 and 2014 had two and four, respectively). In fact, there were only two transactions valued above $1 billion: Ventas’ $1.8 billion purchase of Le Group Maurice’s Canadian seniors housing portfolio and KKR’s $1.75 billion acquisition of the Benchmark Senior Living portfolio from Welltower. However, the 2019 M&A market was larger and busier than people think, and that is... Read More »
Assisted Living Values Break Record
With cheap and abundant capital in hand, and plenty of brand-new properties built during the recent construction boom hitting the M&A market in 2019, buyers pushed assisted living values to the highest per-unit average ever recorded. The average price for assisted living communities rose to $248,400 per unit, or 33% higher than 2018’s average of $186,400 per unit and 12% higher than the previous high of $221,250 per unit in 2017, according the the Senior Care Acquisition Report. The median price per unit also reached a new high of $233,183 per unit, or 54% higher than 2018’s median and 8% higher than 2017’s. So, what explains this significant jump? First, investor interest in seniors... Read More »
PDPM Pushes Up Skilled Nursing Values in 2019
Skilled nursing values rebounded in 2019 to a near-record high of $93,000 per bed. That is still shy of the highest average value ever recorded ($99,200 per bed in 2016), when a number of high-quality, high-Medicare/private pay census transitional care facilities sold. But it was still a very strong year. Most in the industry never fathomed that average would ever approach $100,000 per bed, but it is true that excluding certain high-barrier-to-entry markets, traditional long-term care facilities with majority-Medicaid censuses should never really reach that value. The 2019 average was 20% higher than the $77,500 per bed average in 2018, likely driven by a lot of optimism surrounding the... Read More »