MURFREESBORO, Tenn., and OLATHE, Kan. — National Health Investors Inc. (NYSE: NHI) has signed an agreement with its joint venture partner Bickford Senior Living to convert all of the partnership’s 32 seniors housing leases from a RIDEA structure to triple net.
As part of the deal, NHI will purchase Bickford’s 15 percent stake in the real estate of the communities for $25.1 million, while Bickford will purchase NHI’s 85 percent stake in the operations for $8.1 million. NHI will now receive 100 percent of the rent for the 32 facilities, which will total $25.3 million in 2016.
Additionally, five facilities currently under development by NHI will be added to the master lease as they are opened. All five are slated for completion by the end of 2017.
The new agreement will not affect five communities already using a 15-year triple-net lease between the two companies.
“In financial terms, this transaction is very accretive to NHI and locks in a stream of predictable cash flows for our shareholders,” says Eric Mendelsohn, NHI’s president and CEO. “Bickford emerges as a stronger company with better credit by paying off certain of its legacy debt to third parties, and has the strong incentive to continue to drive operating cash flow at each of the facilities in our lease.”
NHI is a healthcare REIT based in Murfreesboro. Bickford is an operator based in Olathe.