By: Tim Regan, with contributions from Tim Mullaney

Omega Healthcare Investors (NYSE: OHI), one of the largest owners of skilled nursing facilities in the United States, will soon have a new CEO and CFO.

Current CEO Taylor Pickett is stepping down from his post on Oct. 1 and Matthew Gourmand is ascending to the CEO role from his current position as president of the real estate investment trust (REIT).

Omega on May 21 announced the leadership transition in conjunction with the planned retirement of Pickett, who also is stepping down from the board of directors upon his retirement. Gourmand is slated to be appointed to the board.

Bob Stephenson is slated to retire as the company’s CFO on Aug. 1. Neal Ballew, currently Omega’s chief accounting officer, is succeeding him.

“Having worked with Matthew for the past eight years, I believe he is the right person to take the company forward,” Pickett said in a press release. “With a highly experienced and driven team to support him, I am confident that Omega is well-positioned to continue to increase shareholder value.”

End of a 25-year era

Pickett’s retirement marks a new chapter for Omega after his long tenure as the company’s chief executive. That period has been marked by the company’s growth and portfolio diversification. During the time Pickett has been at the helm, the REIT’s market capitalization increased from about $60 million to roughly $15.3 billion. And Omega has achieved a total shareholder return of over 10,000%, which the company touted as the highest of all publicly traded REITs in that period.

Of course, Pickett’s leadership through Covid-19 was one of the defining aspects of his time at the helm. From the early days of the pandemic, Pickett expressed confidence that the company and the skilled nursing industry as a whole would weather the crisis and flourish by providing vital care to a growing segment of the population.

“The demographics that drive our bullish perspective of increasing demand for needs-based skilled nursing care have not changed,” Pickett said in May 2020.

As was the case for owners across the industry, Omega for several years had to be supportive, patient and nimble as operators struggled through the pandemic and its aftermath. Omega’s portfolio changed as a result, with one example being the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of LaVie Care Centers, precipitated partly due to pandemic-related strains. Omega ultimately transferred LaVie’s master lease to a new tenant.

More recently, the bankruptcy of nursing home giant Genesis HealthCare created a high-profile tenant risk for Omega. The REIT provided $8 million to fund a portion of the $30 million debtor-in-possession financing that Genesis secured at the time of its Chapter 11 filing, with a condition being that Genesis continue to pay full contractual rent. Omega went on to commit up to $26.7 million as part of an $80 million super-priority DIP financing. The REIT’s leadership expects that 101 West State Street LLC will close on its nearly $1 billion acquisition of Genesis later this year, at which point the DIP and other financing from Omega will be repaid.

Despite the Genesis-related complications, 2025 was a strong year for Omega, with $1.1 billion in new investments, leverage at its lowest level in company history funds available for distribution (FAD) per share up 8.4%.

Among the most transformative recent deals was the formation of a $222.4 million property joint venture with affiliates of Saber Healthcare, involving 64 SNFs. Omega also invested $93 million for a 9.9% equity stake in operator Saber Healthcare Holdings.

“They’re essentially the private Ensign, and they’re set up to grow really significantly in a very creative way over the next five plus years,” Pickett said, comparing Saber to Ensign Group (NASDAQ: ENSG), a publicly traded operator known for delivering consistently strong results. “We’re really excited to be part of that because [there’s] upside in our investment, plus the yield we’re getting on that investment is really remarkable, and we’ll see how that plays out.”

Omega also recently engaged in the $480 million sale of 19 CommuniCare facilities, which Gourmand described as an opportunistic transaction.

“Positively, [Omega] used a competitive market to prune weaker CommuniCare (9.0% of rents) assets at an attractive price (7.7% yield) on rents, allowing for efficient recycling,” BMO Capital Markets Analyst Juan Sanabria wrote.

That capital will be put to work growing a portfolio that encompasses over 1,000 facilities and is balanced roughly 60% to skilled nursing/transitional care and 40% to senior housing. The current dealmaking environment for SNFs is highly competitive, which Gourmand interprets as validating the long-term value that SNFs hold and Omega’s commitments in the space.

“We don’t think [skilled nursing] is an irrational bid,” Gourmand said on the company’s 1Q 2026 earnings call. “We just think that it’s reflective of the long-term, secular plays that exist – and one of the reasons we aren’t looking to sell prodigious amounts of our skilled nursing.”