IRVINE, Calif. and DALLAS — A court has approved a settlement agreement between Irvine-based Sabra Health Care REIT Inc. (NASDAQ: SBRA) and Senior Care Centers, a Dallas-based operator that declared bankruptcy in December.
Sabra has reached agreements to sell the 28 Senior Care Centers-operated facilities owned by Sabra for $282.5 million.
In addition, Sabra will drop its legal claims against the operator in exchange for a $9.5 million payment, which will be completed by July 1.
Senior Care Centers is the largest skilled nursing operator in Texas, but stopped paying rent to its two largest owners — Sabra and fellow REIT LTC, which owned 49 of the company’s locations at that time.
Senior Care Centers also received a slew of bad press in 2017 after not evacuating residents in advance of Hurricane Harvey, which resulted in state citations and dozens of care violations. (The Category 4 hurricane made landfall along the Texas coast in August 2017.)
The company reported “burdensome debt levels and expensive leases” as reasons for its bankruptcy filing. All facilities will remain open during the restructuring, and the company claims it will continue to pay all vendors and its 11,000 employees during the process.