The sale of Barchester Healthcare’s nursing home business to Welltower is believed to be the world’s-largest care home deal to date.
It is understood that Knight Frank was the sole agent for the transaction and is was confirmed this morning that New York-listed healthcare property investment group, Welltower, is to acquire Barchester and related company, Limecay, which owns the group’s portfolio of physical nursing homes, in a deal said to be worth close to £5bn.
Irish billionaires JP McManus, Dermot Desmond, and John Magnier are set to receive the lion’s share of the proceeds as the biggest shareholders in the business.
Barchester is the UK’s second-largest nursing home operator, with a portfolio of more than 260 care homes and six hospitals.
The company employed 17,200 people at the end of last year.
Knight Frank and Barchester delcined to comment further on the deal, but HealthInvestor UK has been told it marks a key milestone in social care transactions.
Barchester owed £103.6m to related parties and had £366.4m of external loans at the end of last year, according to its latest accounts filed with Companies House, London.
Limecay has £1.09bn of loan notes issued to its parent company in the British Virgin Islands.
These are due for repayment at the end of 2027, its most-recent accounts state.
Loan notes can be a tax-efficient way to structure investments.
Limecay’s property portfolio had a gross value of £1.91bn at the end of December.
Barchester and the related properties came close to being sold six years ago to Macquarie for £2.5bn before the Australian financial services giant pulled out of the deal, blaming uncertainty caused by Brexit.
Welltowers was also among runners and riders in that abandoned sales process.
The Irish tycoons invested in Barchester in 1994, a little over a year after the business was set up by British entrepreneur, Mike Parsons.
