• 60 Seconds with Swett: Navigating the Next Five Years in Seniors Housing M&A

    Are we entering the golden age of seniors housing? Next year, the first baby boomers will start turning 80, and with the current lack of new construction, occupancy rates are already rising before the real demographic wave hits. Many investors, both veterans and those new to our space, will feel pressure to grow their seniors housing holdings to... Read More »
  • Blackstone Sheds Another Asset from Its Seniors Housing Portfolio

    Blueprint handled a couple of sales in Florida and Nevada. The first in Florida involved a global private equity firm selling a 145-unit assisted living and memory care community in Boca Raton, Florida. Ben Firestone, Dillon Rudy and Jacob Ghel of Blueprint facilitated The Atrium at Boca Raton’s ownership transfer. The community presented certain... Read More »
  • CareTrust REIT Establishes SHOP Platform

    Three Texas seniors housing communities with 270 assisted living and memory care units were acquired by CareTrust REIT, Inc. The publicly traded REIT purchased the communities for $40 million, or $148,100 per unit. This marks the first investment of CareTrust’s SHOP platform. The communities were 86% occupied at the time of acquisition and will... Read More »
  • Ensign Grows Through Separate Transactions in Three States

    The Ensign Group, Inc. increased its portfolio through three separate acquisitions in Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. The publicly traded provider expanded its growing Midwest footprint through its Kansas acquisition of the real estate and operations of Willow Point Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a 45-bed skilled nursing facility in Kansas... Read More »
  • Developer/Operator Divests to PE Firm

    A developer and operator sold Rivertown Ridge, a Class-A seniors housing community in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, Michigan, to a private equity firm. This community, built in 2020, features 152 units of independent living, assisted living and memory care, and has exhibited strong performance.  The seller, Redstone Homes, was... Read More »
Brookdale Settling in for the Slog

Brookdale Settling in for the Slog

Now that Land & Buildings has ended its proxy fight to get former HCP, Inc. CEO Jay Flaherty on Brookdale Senior Living’s board of directors, it is apparent that Brookdale management can now face the long, tough slog to enhance operations, census and cash flow, the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately for shareholders who invested at much higher prices than the current levels, the wait may be a long one to get back up to breakeven. It is those newcomers to the stock that may get impatient, again, for management to do something as the share price heads higher. Right now, at $8.48 per share, it is 41% higher than at the beginning of June, and 15% higher than three weeks ago. Progress. We... Read More »
Gloves Come Off in Brookdale’s Proxy Fight

Gloves Come Off in Brookdale’s Proxy Fight

The proxy cards are in the mail to Brookdale Senior Living’s shareholders for the vote at the annual meeting, to be held on October 29, and it looks like CEO Cindy Baier has taken the gloves off. Brookdale has been fighting shareholder Land & Buildings’ nominee for a board position, Jay Flaherty, for many weeks. But now they are bringing up some of Mr. Flaherty’s past transgressions which, according to Brookdale, make “him unfit to serve as a member of Brookdale’s Board.” These transgressions include some foul play in 2011 when he was CEO of HCP, Inc., which resulted in a $101.7 million judgment against HCP, for which the court stated that HCP engaged in “fraudulent conduct with the... Read More »
The Brookdale/Land & Buildings Saga Continues

The Brookdale/Land & Buildings Saga Continues

Many of you may have seen Brookdale Senior Living’s proxy statement filed in response to activist shareholder Land & Buildings’ efforts to put former HCP CEO Jay Flaherty on the company’s Board of Directors, presumably to further its own demands to split Brookdale into an OpCo and PropCo in order to “maximize value for all Brookdale shareholders.” All we can say is, well done to Brookdale and CEO Cindy Baier for standing up to this pressure. We can’t say that we have always supported the decisions made by Brookdale executives and the Board, starting with its acquisition of Emeritus Corp. in 2014. Many pages in The SeniorCare Investor over the years have been dedicated to this topic. We... Read More »
The Brookdale/Land & Buildings Saga Continues

Brookdale Activists Strike Again

We disclosed last week that activist investor Land & Buildings (L&B) had nominated Jay Flaherty, former CEO of HCP, Inc., and Jonathan Litt (founder of L&B) for board election at the 2019 annual meeting of Brookdale Senior Living. L&B has just sent an open letter to Brookdale shareholders providing more rationale for the election of these two candidates. Apparently, L&B hired Green Street Advisors to value Brookdale and its real estate assets, and to provide an opinion as to the feasibility of a PropCo/OpCo split of the company, something Litt has been pushing for quite a while now to enhance shareholder value. Not surprisingly, preliminarily they determined that... Read More »
Brookdale Activists On The Move

Brookdale Activists On The Move

Brookdale Senior Living investor Land & Buildings has nominated Jonathan Litt and Jay Flaherty to Brookdale’s board. Still pushing for a REIT spin-off? He’s baaaack. After his 10-year stint as CEO of HCP, Inc., which included his ill-fated and ill-timed acquisition of the former HCR ManorCare, Jay Flaherty may be back in the senior care mix. That is, if Jonathan Litt of Land & Buildings has his way. Land & Buildings Capital Growth Fund, LP has delivered notice to Brookdale Senior Living that it is nominating Flaherty and Litt for election to the company’s board of directors. We shall see how that flies with the current Brookdale board. Our guess is that they will not go... Read More »