Cindat Capital Gets Old — Buys US Senior Housing and Health Care Portfolio For $930M

Cindat Capital Management, the private equity affiliate of one of China’s big four “bad banks”, has made its first US health care real estate investment, acquiring a portfolio of senior housing and long-term/post-acute care facilities from Ohio-based Welltower for $930 million.

Teaming up with fellow Chinese institution Union Life Insurance for a joint venture acquisition, the mainland duo will get 11 senior housing properties master leased to Brookdale Senior Living and 28 long-term/post-acute care facilities master leased to Genesis Healthcare across the US.

Welltower, formerly known as Health Care REIT, acquired Genesis Healthcare’s real estate assets for $2.4 billion in 2011. Genesis, the largest operator of nursing homes in America, currently has more than 500 facilities in 37 US states.

“With aging demographics and US healthcare trends driving the need for innovative health care infrastructure, we believe the sector represents an attractive long-term investment opportunity,” Greg Peng, CEO at Cindat Capital Management, stated.

Another First In America For Cindat

Cindat, which has invested in more than $6 billion worth of real estate assets in the US, the UK, Australia, and China, continues to break into new sectors of the American after initially focusing on residential projects in New York.

Earlier this year, the firm closed on a $571 million hotel joint venture with Taikang Life Insurance to acquire 1,087 hotel rooms spread across three Holiday Inn Express hotels, three Hampton Inns and a Candlewood Suites hotel at Times Square.

In early 2014 Cindat joined with mainland developer China Vanke and US-based Hines in taking a stake in New York developer Aby Rosen’s 100 East 53rd Street luxury project in Manhattan. Also in Manhattan, it took a $135 million equity stake in a Renzo Piano-designed condo project this year and invested in a $340 million HOK-designed mixed-use development in 2015.

Foreign Firms Target Mainland Health Care Investments

While Cindat is targeting US-based health care real estate investments, several other foreign firms have been doing likewise on the mainland. Earlier in 2016, Mitt Romney-founded Bain Capital paid $150 million for a controlling interest in Asia Pacific Medical Group, which operates 22 clinics and seven hospitals in China and Southeast Asia.

Heythorp Healthcare, a London-based health and community care company, revealed it intended to invest £40 million (US$65 million) to develop health care centers in Nanjing and Kunming with Chinese partners in 2013.

Singapore’s Perennial Real Estate Holdings announced its second and third private healthcare projects in China during January while also noting it has plans to add up to 40 such developments across the country moving forward.