Health Care REIT Adds to Sunrise Deal

Health Care REIT Inc., which last month said it would acquire Sunrise Senior Living Inc., said Tuesday, Sept. 18, it and its merger partner were buying out certain Sunrise joint ventures in deals valued at $710 million.

Toledo, Ohio-based Health Care REIT on Aug. 22 announced plans to buy Sunrise for $1.9 billion in cash and assumed debt in a deal that would position it as one of the world's largest owners of senior housing facilities. The company said at the time that it would likely exercise options held by McLean, Va.-based Sunrise to acquire 100% ownership of certain joint venture properties.

Health Care REIT said Tuesday that since the deal announcement, the companies have acquired or agreed to acquire majority interests in 38 of Sunrise's 105 joint venture properties. Including assumed debt, the follow-on deals have increased the value of real estate to be acquired by 68%, to $3.2 billion.

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The company said it had closed the acquisition of five of the 38 properties for $243 million. Those properties are in the United Kingdom and are managed by Sunrise but purchased from a partnership between Sunrise and an institutional investor. The remaining 33 majority interests will be acquired by Sunrise using proceeds from a $467 million loan to be provided by Health Care REIT.Company chairman and CEO George L. Chapman in a statement said, "We are extremely pleased with our initial success in reaching agreements to purchase additional Sunrise joint venture partner interests.""The ability to transform what was initially announced as a $1.9 billion real estate opportunity into a $3.2 billion transaction upon closing accelerates our portfolio quality enhancement initiatives including increasing the private pay component of our portfolio and its concentration in east and west coast markets and top 31 MSAs," Chapman said.Health Care REIT has been an aggressive acquirer. Since the beginning of 2011, it has announced deals to buy Benchmark Senior Living LLC for $890 million, Silverado Senior Living Inc. for $298 million and the real estate assets of Genesis HealthCare Corp. for $2.4 billion.The company also plans to offer 22 million shares of its common stock with an underwriter option to buy an additional 3.3 million shares. Proceeds from the offering run by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley would be used to repay outstanding indebtedness and for general corporate purposes, including investing in additional properties.

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