• 60 Seconds with Swett: October Smashes M&A Record

    We were predicting a record-breaking end to the year in terms of M&A activity, but we are not sure we expected a 100+ deal month, with 110 transactions and counting. Just to put that in perspective, the previous record for any month was 77 deals in October of last year, and only four months had previously broken the 70-deal barrier. So this... Read More »
  • Newmark Ends October with Portfolio Closings

    Newmark announced a flurry of transactions at the end of October involving various institutional firms. The largest was a portfolio of seniors housing communities in the Northeast known as “Stars and Stripes.” Word on the street is that the portfolio sold for north of $800 million, and that a sub-portfolio was valued at more than $1 million per... Read More »
  • Stacked Stone Acquires Missouri Portfolio

    Stacked Stone Ventures announced the purchase of a seven-community assisted living/memory care portfolio in Missouri for $71 million, or $212,600 per unit. Totaling 334 units and 405 beds, the Oak Pointe portfolio was developed between 2015 and 2020 by an investor group called ClearPath Senior Housing, which included Jeff Binder of Senior Living... Read More »
  • Blueprint Sells Georgia Community to LTC Properties

    LTC Properties divested seven skilled nursing facilities through two separate deals for $122 million in October. In those transaction announcements, the publicly traded REIT noted that it intended to redeploy proceeds for the acquisition of newer, stabilized SHOP assets. It looks like that’s what the publicly traded REIT did in Georgia at the... Read More »
  • MIG Announces Two Closings

    Montgomery Intermediary Group announced a couple of transactions at the end of October. First, Andrew Montgomery sold a 120-bed skilled nursing facility in southern Illinois in a value-add deal. Built in the 1960s and 1970s, the facility had a roughly 50% Medicaid census, with between 30% and 35% private pay and 5% to 10% Medicare. It was losing... Read More »
Monday’s Massacre

Monday’s Massacre

Providers got hurt in Monday’s stock market massacre, but healthcare REITs across the board suffered. We all know that Monday’s massacre in the stock market affected almost all companies. In our sector, the focus has been on providers, since they take care of the highest-risk people as this coronavirus/Covid-19 epidemic spreads. The unprecedented 2,013-point drop in the Dow was bad enough, and providers plunged as well. But so did the healthcare REITs that own their properties. Most of the REITs in our universe dropped by double digits, compared with 7.8% with the Dow and 7.6% with the S&P 500. Diversified Healthcare Trust plunged the most, falling 17.7% on Monday. It was... Read More »
From the Front Lines at NIC

From the Front Lines at NIC

As the hordes descended on San Diego for the Spring NIC conference, we soon learned that hotel rooms suddenly became available at the last minute. Why? Cancelations and no shows, perhaps 10% to 15%, as fears of the coronavirus spread. Larger conferences in the next several weeks have been canceled. For those of us braving the unknown, it was business as usual, elbow bumps instead of handshakes, and no problem finding meeting space in the networking lounge. Obviously, the biggest topic of conversation was the coronavirus, the potential impact on the economy in general, and specifically whether it would be a huge problem for the senior living sector. The worry was that if there were more... Read More »
Capital Senior Living Hits 10-Year Low

Capital Senior Living Hits 10-Year Low

After the earnings reports over the past four weeks, it was unclear whether the seniors housing sector had hit operational bottom or not. Unfortunately, Capital Senior Living’s share price is still trying to find a bottom. But November 19th’s low of $3.45 per share was also the lowest price in more than 10 years, when in March 2009 it hit a low of $2.36 per share. This is not what new CEO Kim Lody wants to see. It is not what shareholders are expecting to see. In March of 2013, the shares hit a peak of $27.90, and hovered below that for the next few years. Acquisition activity was strong, and some shareholders thought they should sell and not wait to see higher values. Within five years,... Read More »
Monday’s Massacre

Of Ventas, Welltower and NIC

I know as one gets older, confusion can become more common. And today, I am a little confused about the state of the senior living industry. -Sponsored by The Senior Care Acquisition Reports   NIC MAP has reported that maybe we have hit bottom in the third quarter, and that new construction starts are starting to decline, even though new openings remain high. Assisted living occupancy, while posting a small sequential increase, still remains far too low to get excited, but bottoming out would be welcome news. Then, Ventas reported its third quarter earnings, painting a not-so-pretty picture. Their RIDEA operating portfolio has not been performing well, posting a 5.0% decline in... Read More »
Brookdale and Capital Senior Living Earnings Disappoint

Brookdale and Capital Senior Living Earnings Disappoint

We are not sure why investors continue to think there may be some break-through news every quarter when the big seniors housing companies report earnings. This has been, and is going to continue to be, a slog to get through the mess created by too much development exacerbated by labor problems. Brookdale Senior Living’s management put a positive spin on the quarter, such as associate turnover improving by 5% compared with last year, and same-community move-ins showing positive year-over-year growth. That is all good news, but it will not be enough to pacify shareholders who want to see much more to move the valuation needle. And while some categories of occupancy showed improvement, such... Read More »