• 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 »
Justin Hutchens Moves to Ventas

Justin Hutchens Moves to Ventas

After several years of living across the pond, Justin Hutchens has decided to return home. Following a successful stint as CEO of HC-One, the UK’s largest senior care provider with more than 300 facilities, Hutchens will be moving to Chicago to be EVP, Senior Housing, North America at Ventas. We have known Justin for almost his entire career in senior living, and not only like him, but have a lot of respect for what he has accomplished. However (isn’t there always a however?), this will be the second CEO position he has left (National Health Investors was the other), and our gut tells us there must be something else because he will be one of four EVPs at Ventas.  Yes,... Read More »
HC-One Becomes Largest Provider in UK

HC-One Becomes Largest Provider in UK

It has been a few months since it was announced that Justin Hutchens would leave HCP, Inc. and join UK-based HC-One as its new CEO. That transition is expected to take place on October 1, and he will certainly have his hands full when he takes over from Chai Patel. HC-One just announced an agreement to acquire 122 senior care properties from Bupa Care Services, also based in the UK, for approximately £300 million, or $384 million. Over the past few months, the deal value was rumored to be in the £300 million to £450 million range, but that was for 150 properties, not the 122 that was agreed upon. Before this acquisition, HC-One was already the third-largest senior care provider in the UK,... Read More »

Justin Hutchens a CEO Again

HCP, Inc. (NYSE: HCP) just announced that Justin Hutchens, elected president of the REIT in January, will be leaving to be CEO of HC-One, one of the largest care home providers in the United Kingdom with more than 300 properties. A little over two years ago, Formation Capital Safanad and Court Cavendish purchased healthcare property group NHP, which included the HC-One portfolio. Funding for that acquisition just happened to come from HCP, to the tune of about $630 million. In addition, it subsequently purchased 36 HC-One properties. So, HC-One and HCP are no strangers, and we believe that this did not come out of the blue, and that the HC-One investors decided that perhaps it was time to... Read More »