• 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.... Read More »
  • Underperforming AL Community Secured for Behavioral Health Conversion

    Blueprint’s behavioral healthcare team was engaged by a single-site residential behavioral healthcare provider in its search for a larger facility to meet its growth needs. The operator, a prominent first responder behavioral healthcare provider, acquired a former assisted living community near Park City, Utah, to expand its residential... Read More »
  • Washington SNF Receives HUD Refinancing

    Berkadia’s Jay Healy Andrew Lanzaro arranged a $15 million loan through HUD’s 232/223(f) program for a California-based sponsor and repeat Berkadia client. The 35-year, non-recourse loan refinanced bank debt that was utilized to pay off the previous HUD loan and fund a new addition for the 99-bed skilled nursing facility located in Bothell,... Read More »
  • Ziegler Handles Bond Financing

    Ziegler announced the closing of Covenant Living Communities and Services $146.46 million Series 2025A tax-exempt bonds. The bonds were issued through the Colorado Health Facilities Authority. Ziegler and CLCS have been partners for over 30 years. CLCS is a not-for-profit organization established to operate a multi-site system of CCRCs on behalf... Read More »
  • LTC Properties Welcomes Dave Boitano

    LTC Properties appointed industry veteran, David Boitano, as Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. This followed the promotion of Clint Malin to Co-Chief Executive Officer in December 2024.  Boitano has spent most of his seniors housing and healthcare finance career at Ventas, sourcing investments, including RIDEA, with direct... Read More »
Welltower Acquires Philly-Area Community

Welltower Acquires Philly-Area Community

The Newmark team was busy in the Mid-Atlantic last month, having earlier closed the sale of a seniors housing community in Chesapeake, Virginia (Virginia Beach MSA). Newmark also headed up the coast to sell a 76-unit assisted living/memory care community in a suburb of Philadelphia.   A private equity fund had purchased the property several years before but experienced slightly declining census before the pandemic caused occupancy to drop to 71%. Built in 2013, the community was bringing in no positive NOI at the time of the sale to Welltower for a purchase price of $19.5 million, or $256,600 per unit. Sunrise Senior Living will take over... Read More »
American Senior Communities Acquires Terre Haute Community

American Senior Communities Acquires Terre Haute Community

Dan Revie and Tedd Van Gorden of Ziegler handled Bethesda Senior Living Communities’ sale of its community of 20 years in Terre Haute, Indiana, to the largest senior care operator in that state, American Senior Communities. In April 2019, ownership agreed to discontinue its memory care units for the next two years to resolve a civil complaint filed by the Indiana State Department of Health following the death of a memory care resident. According to the new community website, there are still no memory care services. No price was disclosed in the ownership transition.  Read More »
HHC Finance Wraps Up April HUD Activity

HHC Finance Wraps Up April HUD Activity

Housing & Healthcare Finance (HHC Finance) is also continuing to take advantage of historically low interest rates by arranging HUD refinances for its clients. Recently, the company secured three loans totaling more than $33 million for three senior care facilities. You can read about that deal here.   Then, HHC Finance wrapped up its April activity with $67 million of HUD loans closed for a portfolio of six skilled nursing facilities in Georgia. Built from 1968 to 1993, the facilities all total 620 beds. HHC Finance also closed an $18 million loan modification for an Illinois SNF. All in a month’s work.  Read More »
Ensign Exceeds Expectations, Yet Again

Ensign Exceeds Expectations, Yet Again

What’s in the water in San Juan Capistrano? The Ensign Group, which is based in the California town, just reported another impressive quarter with GAAP diluted record earnings per share of $0.86. That is an increase of 17.8% over the prior-year quarter. That excludes any revenues from the CARES Act Provider Relief Funds as well, so that improvement is the real deal. Given the success of the company’s decentralized structure, maybe we should be asking what’s in the water at each of Ensign’s properties.  Starting with occupancy, Ensign reported a 0.4% increase in its same store occupancy and a 1.6% increase in its transitional occupancy, both sequentially over the fourth quarter of 2020. For... Read More »
LTC Properties’ Quarter of Flux

LTC Properties’ Quarter of Flux

With its most recent earnings results out, LTC Properties reported a quarter of flux, transition and ongoing rent relief for its tenants. These can all certainly be good things for the company going forward, but we’re sure they would have liked to report some good operating news as well.   To start off, the REIT transitioned 11 assisted living communities previously leased to Senior Lifestyle to two new operators: Randall Residences, which is taking over six of them, and Encore Senior Living which took over the remaining five. This was not new news, as LTC announced the change in its fourth quarter earnings report in February. And the release of the other 12 properties could not come soon... Read More »
Merrill Commercial Real Estate Handles Two-Community Deal in California

Merrill Commercial Real Estate Handles Two-Community Deal in California

It took over a year, but Tyler Merrill of Merrill Commercial Real Estate successfully closed the sale of two assisted living communities in Redding, California. One of the communities in particular was hit hard by COVID-19, and occupancy dropped by a combined 20% across the two properties. Despite that, the same private equity buyer remained interested throughout the difficult year and kept to the same agreed-upon purchase price of $18 million, albeit with an approximate $1 million holdback in escrow until the new owner reaches pre-COVID NOI levels and 75% occupancy. Before the pandemic, the communities maintained around 88% occupancy, but there is a lot of upside in expense management.... Read More »

Recent Senior Care M&A Deals, Week Ending April 30, 2021

April ended with a bit of a whimper in senior care M&A activity, but check out our recent deal chart. Long-Term Care AcquirerTargetPrice Private equity firmSkilled nursing/assisted living facilityN/A MA-based owner/operatorAssisted living/memory care communityN/A Private equity firm2 assisted living communities in Redding, CA$18... Read More »
Blueprint Sells Down East

Blueprint Sells Down East

Steve Thomes and Ben Firestone of Blueprint Healthcare Real Estate Advisors sold an assisted living/memory care community on the scenic Maine coast. Located just south of Portland, the property consists of a 57-unit assisted living and a 41-unit memory care building developed in 1996 and 1997, respectively. They were owned by a REIT and endured fluctuations in their occupancy throughout the pandemic. Eventually, a Massachusetts-based owner/operator with communities throughout New England emerged as the buyer, paying an undisclosed sum.  Read More »
Welltower Sees Light at End of Tunnel

Welltower Sees Light at End of Tunnel

Welltower was the first REIT out of the gate with its first quarter earnings release, something the market has been waiting for to see if there are any signs that a turnaround is on the way. The answer is…sort of.  First the bad news. Average first quarter 2021 occupancy in its seniors housing owned portfolio declined by about 310 basis points from the fourth quarter, which was near the middle of management’s forecast, so totally expected. The occupancy at the end of March was 73.6%, or 1,210 basis points lower than at the end of January 2020. That’s a big hole their operators have to dig out of.   Assisted living and independent living revenue per occupied room... Read More »
Welltower Announces New Investments

Welltower Announces New Investments

At the same time it released first quarter earnings results, Welltower announced a major recapitalization of HC-One, the largest UK-based seniors housing platform, where it previously had a mezzanine loan investment with one of the owners. Formation Capital has been a 50-50 owner in HC-One, along with partner Safanad. Formation rolled most of its capital into the recapped company.  Welltower has provided a $750 million secured loan and a $76 million equity investment into HC-One. The loan will refinance existing debt and will help to simplify the company’s capital structure. It has a five-year term and is fully collateralized by HC-One’s real... Read More »
Joint Venture Acquires Former Brookdale Community in Florida

Joint Venture Acquires Former Brookdale Community in Florida

Owner/operator Inspirit Senior Living and investment/asset management firm Venue Capital co-sponsored a joint venture with Drake Real Estate Partners to acquire a seniors housing community in Lecanto, Florida. Immediately after the deal, the three parties are also planning a substantial renovation and rebranding of the property. Built in 1988, the community consists of 79 assisted living and memory care units. Welltower previously owned the property, with Brookdale Senior Living operating it.   However, Inspirit will take over management going forward, bolstering its presence in the Southeast. In early 2020, Inspirit and Venue Capital also acquired a portfolio of four... Read More »