Last quarter was a noteworthy one for senior housing acquisitions—especially in terms of dollar volume.
About $9.7 billion worth of seniors housing and care acquisitions were publicly announced during the second quarter of 2017. That’s an almost 600% increase over the $1.4 billion worth of acquisitions publicly announced during the first quarter of this year, as well as the highest dollar volume recorded since the second quarter of 2014, according to the most recent statistics from Irving Levin Associates.
The $9.7 billion worth of publicly announced acquisitions that took place in the second quarter of 2017 also represented a 299% increase over the $2.4 billion worth of seniors housing and care properties that changed hands in the year-ago period.
Several blockbuster seniors housing and care deals were reported in the past few months, including the impending merger of Sabra Health Care REIT (NASDAQ: SBRA) and Care Capital Properties, and Columbia Pacific Advisors’ purchase of Hawthorn Retirement Group, which is rumored to have sold for about $2 billion.
“This increase in dollars committed to the seniors housing and care sector illustrates the continued investment interest in the sector and the willingness of buyers to commit significant amounts of capital, despite current headwinds,” said Steve Monroe, managing editor of The SeniorCare Investor and editor of The Senior Care Acquisition Report—a pair of Irving Levin Associates publications—in a statement announcing the new statistics.
“Each of the two largest transactions was more than double the dollar size of the largest acquisition in 2016, so it looks like the large deals are back in vogue,” Monroe added.
Overall health care merger and acquisition activity—including hospitals and other providers—dropped from 423 acquisitions to 365 between the second quarter of 2016 and the same quarter in 2017, or a decline of 14%. That’s slightly better than the 17% drop in seniors housing and care deals over that span, which fell from 90 to 75.
Written by Alex Spanko
