Care home investment firm spending tops £165m

A Scottish-managed investment group which focuses on the care home sector has struck a deal which takes its total spend to over £165 million in less than three years.

Target Healthcare: £165m deal. Picture: Getty Images

The Target Healthcare trust, managed by Stirling-based Target Advisers, is also working on a number of other acquisitions which are expected to be announced within months. The expansion comes as the care home sector is increasingly being on the radar of investors given the rapidly ageing population.

In the trust’s latest buy, it has exchanged contracts to acquire a care home in Sheffield in a £3.9m deal.

The 69-bed Tapton Court home has been closed since 2014, and will now be redesigned and refurbished before being leased to Care Concern Group for 35 years. It will be the third home which Care Concern operates in Target Healthcare’s portfolio, along with Mossvale Care Home in Glasgow and The Ashton in Hinckley, Leicestershire.

Kenneth MacKenzie, managing partner of Target Advisers, said: “When the renovations and refurbishments are complete this home will represent a very high quality asset which fits in well with our overall portfolio and will be an excellent example of investing in existing care home assets to deliver appropriate future proof assets of the right physical standards for the benefit of the sector.”

He added that the group is “working on a number of further transactions and we hope to conclude more deals in the coming months”.

The Target Healthcare group, which joined the main market in March 2013, is the only UK listed specialist investor in care homes. Recent research by sector expert Laing & Buisson has highlighted the first significant fall for some time in UK care home places which, coupled with growth in the over 85s population, is likely to benefit the care sector in the future.

Target Advisors, a specialist advisory and property management services provider to the healthcare investment sector, was launched in February 2010.

Chartered accountant MacKenzie led the acquisition of Independent Living Services (ILS), Scotland’s largest independent domiciliary care provider in 2005.