MONTREAL and QUEBEC CITY — Welltower (NYSE: WELL), the largest seniors housing owner in the United States, has acquired 12 communities totaling 4,173 units in the Quebec province of Canada.
The price was CA$885 million, which equates to US$639.2 million based on this morning’s exchange rate. Welltower says the price is a more than 40 percent discount to replacement cost.
The communities are an average of eight years old and are highly concentrated in the province’s two major markets of Montreal and Quebec City.
Cogir, a current Welltower partner and a leading operator of seniors housing communities across Canada, manages the portfolio. The companies also partner on several U.S. properties through a Cogir subsidiary.
As part of the deal, Welltower is acquiring Cogir’s entire Jazz brand, which is the company’s premium communities.
For its reasoning behind the acquisition, Welltower cites strong occupancy even through COVID-19, lower levels of acuity and longer length of stay than comparable properties in the area, net operating income (NOI) margins over 40 percent and low need for capital expenditure improvements.
With the acquisition, Cogir now operates 62 Welltower-owned communities. The Welltower-Cogir relationship began in 2015 with a seven-property acquisition and has grown to include properties across the US and Canada through a combination of development, acquisitions and transitions.