Dunblane investor buys three Tayside care homes

By PETER RANSCOMBE
Published on 11/03/2013 10:23

A PROPERTY investment fund will today reveal that it has snapped up three care homes for £14.2 million, just days after floating on the London stock market.

Dunblane-based Target Healthcare raised £45.6m from institutional investors, wealth managers and private investors when it joined the main market last Thursday and aims to have the cash invested by October.

The first three homes that the real estate investment trust (Reit) has bought – in Arbroath, Dundee and Huntley – were previously owned by Balhousie Care Group. Balhousie will lease them for 30 years for an aggregate rent of about £1.1m, which represents an initial yield of more than 7 per cent.

Balhousie, founded by chairman Tony Banks in 1991, is Scotland’s largest privately-owned care home operator, with 1,100 residents in 27 homes.

Kenneth MacKenzie, managing partner at Target Advisers, said: “This ­acquisition is typical of the investments the company intends to make. We are looking to acquire the buildings of care home operators that are best-in-class.”