The Pennant Group Debut
The Pennant Group is The Ensign Group’s latest spin off. If history repeats itself, the new company will succeed. It has been three weeks since The Pennant Group was spun out of The Ensign Group as a separate publicly traded company. This is not Ensign’s first rodeo when it comes to successful spin outs. Five years ago, it spun out the majority of its real estate assets (and mostly skilled nursing) into CareTrust REIT, which has been among the leaders in shareholder return among healthcare-oriented REITs. As Ensign grew its senior living and home health and hospice business, management decided that shareholders would benefit from higher valuation multiples if these assets were spun... Read More »
Ensign Expands in Idaho
The Ensign Group grew its Pacific Northwest portfolio with the purchase of a 119-bed skilled nursing facility in Rexburg, Idaho (near the Wyoming border). The facility provides speech, physical and occupational therapy, wound care and dialysis care in addition to traditional long-term care. Pennant Healthcare, Inc., Ensign’s portfolio company based in the Pacific Northwest, will take over operations. No purchase price was disclosed, but the deal included both the real estate and operations, continuing a strategy of Ensign to own more of the real estate in its portfolio. This is the company’s first Idaho deal this year, after it acquired three facilities and 244 total beds in the Gem... Read More »
Ensign Expands Again in Arizona
Serial acquirer The Ensign Group just announced its 10th senior care acquisition of the year, and 20th since the start of 2018. Its latest target was a 100-bed skilled nursing facility in Surprise, Arizona. Newly built, the facility is the seventh added to Ensign’s Arizona portfolio since 2018 and its 31st overall health care property in the state. As usual for Ensign’s Arizona acquisitions, its affiliate Bandera Healthcare will take over operations at the facility. Ensign also acquired the real estate, furthering its goal to own more of the real estate in its portfolio. Read More »
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 »