Greystone, a New York-based real estate lending, investment and advisory company, launched Greystone Healthcare Investments, an extension of the firm’s existing health care real estate capital services.
The new platform will focus on providing equity to health care facility owners, particularly post-acute care (PAC) and skilled nursing facilities — primarily through the sale-leaseback model, with Greystone touting providers’ ability to maintain management and operations.
Frank Small will lead the platform as chief investment officer. He previously served as a managing director at GMF Capital.
“With today’s razor-thin margins in the health care industry, this financing vehicle can prove to be a game-changing strategy for many operators who excel at management and want to focus on that core competency,” Small said in a statement announcing the new venture.
SNFs have a bad reputation among investors, at least if a recent survey from the CBRE (NYSE: CBRE) U.S. Healthcare Capital Markets Group is anything to go by. The group of investors surveyed ranked SNFs near the bottom of their wish list of targets.
The perceived risk of SNF headwinds is higher than the actual risk, however, Small said at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) Spring Investment Forum in Dallas in March. And knowing the risk requires knowing the operator.
“A lot of it… candidly, is spending a lot of time with the operator and understanding — are they the right operator for that asset in that market,” he said in a panel at the conference.
Written by Maggie Flynn