Troubled skilled nursing operator HCR ManorCare, Inc. has reportedly received a half-billion-dollar loan, but the Toledo, Ohio-based firm remains quiet on whether it will use the money to end its protracted battle with landlord Quality Care Properties (NYSE: QCP).
ManorCare secured a $550 million line of credit from the New York City-based private equity firm Centerbridge Partners, the Toledo Blade reported Friday. It’s cash the operator desperately needs: QCP, the Bethesda, Md.-based real estate investment trust (REIT) that serves as ManorCare’s primary landlord, threw its lease into default earlier this month after it missed a deadline to repay $79.6 million in back rent.
By QCP’s math, the operator now owes that amount plus $265 million in deferred rent obligations.
But a ManorCare spokeswoman demurred when the Blade asked if the loan would help end its conflict with QCP, saying only that the company would use the cash to repay a $375 million term loan and that talks with QCP were ongoing.
The spokeswoman, ManorCare assistant vice president of marketing communications Julie Beckert, offered a similar comment to Skilled Nursing News.
“HCR ManorCare did close on a loan,” Beckert said in an e-mail. “We remain in discussions with QCP.”
QCP was similarly mum Friday morning, issuing a short press release affirming that ManorCare still had not yet paid its rent, and that the REIT had nothing to do with the Centerbridge loan.
“QCP announced that it did not assist with or participate in the negotiation or closing of such financing,” the company said in the release.
The REIT also reiterated that ManorCare remains in default, and that QCP has the right to terminate the leases, appoint receivers, “or exercise other remedies” if the operator doesn’t pay “immediately.” QCP had originally given an “immediate” deadline of July 14, which passed without any action.
Representatives from QCP and Centerbridge did not respond to requests for comment at press time. A spokesperson for the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm that has owned ManorCare since 2007, said his company had no comment on the news.
Written by Alex Spanko
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