The senior housing sector has a powerful new capital source. BMO Harris Bank is launching a new senior care-focused group headed up by industry veteran Imran Javaid, with plans to deploy $1 billion to $2 billion over the next several years.
BMO Harris has been providing financing to the senior housing and related health care sectors on an “ad hoc basis” and now intends to specialize, Javaid tells Senior Housing News.
Javaid officially became managing director of BMO’s new Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Healthcare practice on March 4. Previously, he was managing director of healthcare and speciality finance at Capital One, where he led a group that made loans for assisted living, skilled nursing, and other senior care companies.
“We’ve got a big mandate and a lot of good balance sheet capability,” Javaid says of the BMO practice. “We’ll be trying to address senior housing, medical office buildings, and skilled nursing across the country. We’re bullish on the industry.”
The new team at BMO will be offering products such as construction financing and revolving and term facilities on a single-asset or portfolio basis.
While deploying $1 billion to $2 billion over the “next several years” is simply a rough internal goal, the BMO group has a “judicious business plan” and expects to hit that range, Javaid says.
Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank is a subsidiary of of the Canadian Bank of Montreal and owned by BMO Financial Group (TSX, NYSE: BMO). BMO Financial Group has $545 billion in assets and 46,000 employees around the globe.
The CRE Healthcare group will draw on expertise from BMO’s Capital Markets and Diversified Industries businesses, according to Javaid. With regard to senior living in particular, the group is building on the leadership of Jonathan Li in Capital Markets.
“[BMO] saw this as a natural progression,” he says.
Written by Tim Mullaney
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