• WOW! Sonida Senior Living Goes BIG

    Sonida Senior Living just announced what can only be described as a transformational acquisition. Since new management came in, CEO Brandon Ribar and CFO Kevin Detz, Sonida has been on an upward path of improved operations and a balance sheet that has grown stronger. Occupancy has been increasing (87.7% in Q3) and NOI and EBITDA are rising. Spot... Read More »
  • 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 »
August Acquisition Volume Light, But Consistent

August Acquisition Volume Light, But Consistent

Can we call it a comeback when the seniors housing and care M&A market surpassed 20 deals in August? We recorded 21 publicly announced transactions in the month, which is the highest total since April when 22 deals were disclosed. Since April, there have been 20 deals announced in May, 18 in June and 20 again in July. Consistent, yes, but we just still aren’t used to seeing numbers like these after the heady times of 2018 and 2019 when buyers regularly made 40 transactions or more in a month.   Through the end of August, the seniors housing and care M&A market reached 200 deals announced in 2020, so far. Roughly half of that total came in the first quarter, which was... Read More »
Diversified Healthcare Trust Divests Two Managed Communities

Diversified Healthcare Trust Divests Two Managed Communities

Diversified Healthcare Trust (DHC) divested a couple of its SHOP assets, both located in Mississippi and operated by Five Star Senior Living under the Hermitage Gardens name. Built around 2000 and renovated in 2005, the properties include a 57-unit assisted living community in Oxford and a 59-unit AL community in Southaven.   DHC acquired them in 2006 for a combined $12.4 million, or $112,700 per unit, and at a 7.5% cap rate. The current purchase price is not known, but in DHC’s second quarter earnings report, the company mentioned selling two managed senior living properties and two MOBs subsequent to the quarter for a combined $5.197 million. An undisclosed private equity firm was the... Read More »
REITs Start To Cut Dividends

REITs Start To Cut Dividends

The healthcare Real Estate Investment Trusts have been the hardest hit in our sector during the recent stock market plunge. Many are worried about their own liquidity and drew down on their credit facilities, even if they didn’t need the funds now. Some just went and raised new debt to bolster their liquidity. They are obviously worried about their tenants’ future financial performance, and they know that wages, utilities and food bills have to be paid before rent. One REIT, Ventas (NYSE: VTR), has already offered to defer 25% of April’s rent until October. They had the largest credit facility drawdown of $2.7 billion. May is just a month away, and the environment will surely be... Read More »
Five Star Senior Living Soars

Five Star Senior Living Soars

Shares of Five Star Senior Living have soared by more than 60% this year, leaving everyone guessing. Right after all the restructuring was completed at year end between Five Star Senior Living and its landlord, now recently re-named Diversified Healthcare Trust, Five Star’s shares have taken off.  Two points to remember, though. Five Star just doled out about 26.5 million shares to Diversified and its shareholders to remove working capital liabilities. And, last October 1 they completed a 1-10 reverse stock split. That is important because now that the shares are trading at over $6.00 per share, for comparison purposes, that would be 60 cents per share four months ago. It just shows... Read More »
New Year, New Name for Senior Housing Properties Trust

New Year, New Name for Senior Housing Properties Trust

While we were all up celebrating the New Year this past Wednesday, Senior Housing Properties Trust was kissing goodbye to its name, officially changing it to Diversified Healthcare Trust effective January 1, 2020. The company is still listed for trading on the NASDAQ but under the new ticker symbol of “DHC.” According to Jennifer Francis, President and Chief Operating Officer, the name-change better depicted the company’s portfolio of healthcare real estate (which encompasses medical office, life science and wellness centers in addition to senior living communities) and its strategy going forward. That fresh start was reinforced with the completion of DHC’s restructuring of its Five Star... Read More »